From Desk to Field: Reassigned Agents Are Catching More Illegal Aliens at Northern Border 

The U.S. northern border spans more than 5,500 miles, including Canada’s border with Alaska, making it the longest land border in the world—and historically challenging to patrol.  

But now, for the “first time in years, we’ve been able to redeploy agents from processing centers back to the field, patrolling the land, and catching illegal aliens we simply couldn’t get to before,” Hilton Beckham, Customs and Border Protection assistant commissioner, told The Daily Signal.  

Patrol efforts include “at-large operations targeting those already in the country,” Beckham said.  

While every sector along the southern border has seen a decline in the number of illegal alien encounters, a handful of northern border sectors are reporting an increase in encounter numbers, including the in Detroit Sector.  

In fiscal year 2024, Border Patrol encountered 624 illegal aliens in the Detroit Sector, which includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. So far in fiscal year 2025, Border Patrol has encountered twice as many, 1,281, illegal aliens in the sector.  

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“What’s really happening is, it’s just we’ve stepped up enforcement, especially in the last year,” a CBP Detroit Sector spokesperson told The Daily Signal, adding that the “change in administration, that’s changed our enforcement priorities.”  

President Donald Trump has made border and immigration policy one of his greatest priorities since he returned to the Oval Office in January. Trump ended the Biden administration’s mass parole programs; reinstated the “Remain in Mexico” policy, requiring illegal aliens to wait outside the U.S. for their immigration hearing; and implemented a litany of border security measures.  

The Detroit Sector has historically not seen large numbers of illegal alien encounters, and illegal crossings into the sector remain low in comparison to the southern border, but now, the spokesperson said CBP is working more closely with local communities to identify and report immigration violations.  

Among those being apprehended, many actually crossed the southern border and are now being apprehended by Border Patrol in the Detroit Sector or other sectors along the northern border, the spokesperson explained.  

The illegal aliens that Border Patrol fails to apprehend when they cross the border are classified as “gotaways.” During the Biden administration, an estimated 2 million known gotaways entered the U.S. It is impossible to know how many entered without being detected by Border Patrol cameras or sensors.  

The northern border has “historically had less infrastructure and fewer agents than the southern border,” Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “As a result, the northern border was easier to cross illegally than the southern border, and the gotaway numbers were high.”  

It is “welcome news,” according to Ries, that CBP is now catching more illegal aliens at the northern border, adding that the trend “shows the success of the reconciliation bill.”  

In July, Trump signed that so-called Big, Beautiful Bill, which allocated $165 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, including $46.5 billion to complete border-wall construction, $3.2 billion for “new technology,” and $2.7 billion for “new cutting-edge border surveillance,” according to the Department of Homeland Security.  

CBP continues to urge Americans to be vigilant and report any suspicious or illegal immigration activity to the Border Patrol.  

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