Migrants in Denver offered bus ride to Canadian border

In the latest indication of the increasingly porous and chaotic Canada-u.s. border, a Colorado official was recently allegedly recorded attempting to empty out a homeless shelter by offering to send residents “to the Canadian border.”

“You don’t have to walk anywhere, we can buy you a free ticket. You can go to any city. We can take you up to the Canadian border, wherever,” Andres Carrera, a “newcomer communications liaison” with the City of Denver, was recorded telling arrivals at a migrant shelter.

After explaining that Denver already has “too many migrants” and that resources are sapped, Carrera ends his speech by asking, “OK, who wants to travel to different cities where there is more work?”

In comments to a local NBC affiliate, the City of Denver said it wasn’t city policy to send migrants directly to Canadian cities, but they will distribute free bus tickets to U.S. stops that are close to the Canadian border, if that’s what migrants want.

It’s not the first time a U.S. city has been caught attempting to alleviate shelter space by exporting migrants to Canada. And it also occurs amid a record-breaking surge of illegal migrants going the other direction.

Last month, U.S. border agents in New York, New Hampshire and Vermont all reported arresting record numbers of migrants entering illegally from Canada. In 2023, 7,000 migrants were arrested attempting to illegally enter those states via Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick — a number that was higher than the last 12 years combined.

“I have never seen anything like it," Erik Lavallee, a Vermont-based U.S. Border Patrol Agent, told CBS last month.

Just last week, a social media post by the United States Border Patrol reported apprehending an SUV packed with nine U.K. nationals that was attempting to enter from Quebec by smashing its way through a farm on the Vermont border.

In the Denver case, however, the migrants had come to the U.S. via its southern border, which is experiencing a simultaneous surge in illegal crossings that is exponentially higher than anything coming from Canada.

According to February figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, more than 7 million people — an amount roughly equivalent to the population of Quebec — have illegally crossed the Southwestern U.S. border in just the last three years.

Beginning in 2022, this has prompted Texas Governor Greg Abbott to send busloads of migrants to northern states — particularly to jurisdictions that have declared themselves “sanctuary cities” where local law enforcement are ordered not to co-operate in enforcing federal immigration law.

The migrants being addressed by Carrera were only the latest such busload to arrive in Denver, a certified “sanctuary city” that has thus far received roughly 40,000 bused migrants from Texas.

Denver now officially joins New York City in the ranks of U.S. “sanctuary cities” attempting to cope with a surge of bused-in migrants by offering them free passage to Canada.

In February 2023, New York City mayor Erik Adams confirmed that his administration was funding the “re-ticketing process” of migrants who wanted to move elsewhere, including by illegally crossing into Canada.

“Some want to go to Canada, some want to go to warmer states, and we are there for them as they continue to move on with their pursuit of this dream,” Adams told a local Fox affiliate.

According to an official tally by the Office of the Texas Governor, New York City has been the prime target of their operation to bus migrants to U.S. sanctuary cities.

As to what has prompted the surge of migrants illegally entering the U.S. from Canada, one factor might be the Trudeau government’s 2016 decision to rescind visa requirements for Mexican nationals — a policy Ottawa just reversed after it prompted a massive influx of asylum seekers.

Crossing into the U.S. via the sparse Canadian border is also generally smoother and less likely to result in arrest.

In February, an investigation by the Daily Mail detailed a New Jersey-based gang co-ordinating illegal entries to the U.S. via Canada for $6,000 per person. The report said the Canada route had become popular among wealthier migrants who wanted to avoid “chaotic and dangerous conditions on the southern border.”

Border agents have reported that the migrants coming in from Canada are often attempting to avoid detection, in sharp contrast to migrants coming in via Mexico who are often seeking out border patrol agents so they can claim asylum.

In January, Plattsburgh, N.y.-based border agent Raymond Bresnahan told local media that while most of the migrants coming in from Canada are merely seeking employment, they are seeing not-insignificant numbers of “aggravated felons.”

“We still catch a lot of bad people,” he said.