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Republican members of Congress sought to increase pressure on Canada on Tuesday by portraying the northern border as a dangerous security threat that allowed many drugs and illegal migrants into the United States
But when Republicans in the House of Representatives bWhile the Subcommittee on Regulatory Security and Enforcement attempted to present evidence that such threats from Canada are increasing, the statistics showed otherwise.
Tuesdays hearing on Capitol Hill was titled “Northern Exposure: Assessing the Evolving Threat Landscape at America’s Northern Border.”
It began when the subcommittee chairman, Republican Michael Guest of Mississippi, claimed that the Trump administration’s actions at the southern border had caused Mexican cartels to shift their criminal operations to the border with Canada.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin made similar claims in June.
“Illegal border crossings have begun to move north,” Guest claimed. “Drug seizures at the northern border have steadily increased, reaching record levels this year.”
However, Guest and his Republican colleagues on the subcommittee often lacked the statistics to back up their rhetoric.
That became clear when the politicians held questions and answers with several Department of Homeland Security officials who were called as witnesses.
Drug seizures along Canadian border ‘down 55%’
Jason Schneider, acting deputy chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, described drug trafficking from Canada as an “ongoing threat” but provided statistics that contradicted Guest’s claim of a record number of drug seizures this year.
“Drug seizures along the northern border (by) the U.S. Border Patrol are down 55 percent,” Schneider said at the hearing.
Arrests of undocumented immigrants have also declined in regions along the Canadian border, Schneider said. They are 22 percent lower in the current fiscal year (which began in October) than in fiscal year 2025, which in turn was 67 percent lower than the previous year.
Still, Republicans continued their scrutiny of threats from Canada.
Congressman Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma noted the potential threat posed by people with commercial driver’s licenses from Canada.
“Are you concerned or have you seen any issues regarding commercial drivers, non-resident drivers, that would use our northern border that could leave us vulnerable to attacks of any kind?” Brecheen asked the witnesses.
“Not so much on the northern border”
“I’m not aware of any specific incidents regarding this,” replied Chris Holtzer, who heads the U.S. Customs and Border Protection field office.
“I wouldn’t know,” Schneider added. “We encounter these subjects at our checkpoints along the southwest border, but not as frequently at the northern border.”
Brecheen, the Oklahoma Republican, also asked about cross-border fentanyl trafficking from Canada, something U.S. President Donald Trump began complaining about before his return to the White House last year.
Border Patrol officials described the amount of the deadly drug coming from Canada as minimal compared to Mexico.
“The majority of what we’re seeing is coming across the southwest border,” Holtzer said. “The most we saw (from Canada), I think, was in Blaine, Washington, with a total of about two pounds of fentanyl.”
According to recent data, U.S. officials have seized just 3.2 kilograms of fentanyl along the northern border in the past eight months U.S. Customs and Border Protection Statistics published online.
That’s a significant decrease compared to the 35 kilograms of fentanyl seized at the northern border throughout fiscal 2025.
Both figures represent just a tiny fraction of fentanyl seizures along the Mexican border over the same period: 3,200 kilograms in the last eight months and 5,200 kilograms in fiscal year 2025.
Buffalo Democrat slams Trump’s ‘misplaced priorities’
Democrats on the subcommittee mostly used their time with the witnesses to challenge the involvement of Customs and Border Protection agents in immigration raids outside the border and question whether officers will be deployed to polling sites in the upcoming midterm elections.
“We are focused on the border. We have no intention of being at voting locations,” Schneider said.
The only congressman at the hearing representing a district on the northern border, Democrat Tim Kennedy of Buffalo, N.Y., warned that the Trump administration’s “extreme immigration agenda” was threatening the local economy.
“We will lose if this government diverts resources, harms diplomatic relations with Canada, suppresses legitimate trade and pushes agents into Western New York to terrorize our community,” Kennedy said at the hearing.
“Unfortunately, Buffalo has experienced all of these challenges because of misplaced priorities in the White House.”
