More than a dozen ill-prepared migrants, including five children, were caught trying to illegally cross into Canada in below-freezing weather that could have claimed their lives, officials said.
Alberta police intercepted four adults and five children from Venezuela who were trudging their suitcases through the snow in bone-chilling temperatures of minus-22-degrees Farenheit, The Guardian reports.
Canadian Police Assistant Commissioner Lisa Moreland told reporters the group was found struggling in the snow and “incredibly cold” weather, which put their lives at risk.
A second group of migrants — made up of six adults from Jordan, Sudan, Chad, and Mauritius — was located in a dense forest near Manitoba’s border.
Officials were able to locate the group in the frigid weather thanks to thermal cameras equipped on police planes flying over the forest.
Moreland said that in both cases, the migrants were wearing clothes ill-suited to the deadly cold temperatures in the region — as she called on migrants to avoid making such dangerous treks across the border because they often end in tragedy.
“There’s the cross-border piece, but also the humanity piece,” Moreland said of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s work surveilling the border. “[There have been] incidents where people did not make it.
“The people might have succumbed to a heartbreaking situation similar to the freezing death of the Patel family,” Moreland added, referencing the infamous 2022 case in which an Indian migrant family — parent and their 11-year-old daughter — froze to death while trying to make the trek.
The latest crossings also came as a Canadian was extradited to New York on human smuggling charges over the death of a 33-year-old pregnant woman from Mexico who was found dead in the Great Chazy River near Lake Champlain in 2023.
Canada has upped its border security as part of a deal with President Trump, who claimed that the northern neighbor was bringing in vast amounts of migrants and fentanyl over the border.
Border crossings into, rather than from, Canada have skyrocketed in the post-pandemic era, with 23,700 people apprehended in the last fiscal year, up from just 2,200 in 2022, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
Despite the increase, it stands at a fraction of the estimated 1.5 million apprehensions at the southern border last year.
To appease Trump and halt the high tariffs he has threatened, Canada’s government promised to commit $900 million to strengthen the border, including the purchases of two Black Hawk helicopters and drones.
The Alberta border would also see a new sheriff patrol unit with 50 armed sheriffs, 10 surveillance drones specifically built to fly in the freezing weather, and a pack of drug detecting dogs.
