From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley

Under the Biden administration, the greatest number of illegal border crossers at the U.S.-Canada border were reported in U.S. history, breaking records nearly every month for four years, The Center Square first reported.

While record high numbers dropped under the Trump administration, illegal entries still remain high in northern border states, with some states reporting more apprehensions in 2025 than during the Biden years.

Fourteen U.S. states share the longest international border in the world with Canada, totaling 5,525 miles across land and water.

The majority of illegal border crossers were apprehended and encountered in five northern border states, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data analyzed by The Center Square. Nearly half were reported in New York. Washington, Vermont, Maine and Montana recorded the next greatest numbers.

The majority of northern border states reported the greatest number of illegal entries in U.S. history in 2024, the last year of the Biden administration, according to CBP data. At the height of the border crisis, illegal entries reached nearly 200,000 at the northern border in 2024 and in 2023, first reported by The Center Square.

For fiscal years 2022 through 2025, 754,928 illegal border crossers were reported in 14 northern border states, according to the latest available CBP data.

From west to east, illegal entries at the northern border totaled:

• Alaska: 7,380

• Washington: 135,116

• Idaho: 620

• Montana: 32,036

• North Dakota: 14,818

• Minnesota: 8,315

• Wisconsin: 118

• Michigan: 50,321

• Ohio: 1,546

• Pennsylvania: 19,145

• New York: 363,910

• Vermont: 61,790

• New Hampshire: 82

• Maine: 59,731

Notably, Alaska, Idaho, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin reported record high illegal crossings in 2023. Although Montana and North Dakota saw a drop in 2025 from record highs in 2024, the number of illegal border crossers apprehended in the two states in 2025 were greater than they were in 2022; in Montana they were more than double.

The data only includes nine months of the Trump administration. The CBP fiscal year goes from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30. Biden administration data includes the first three months of fiscal 2025, nine months of fiscal 2021, and all of fiscal years 2022, 2023 and 2024. Combined, illegal northern border crosser apprehensions totaled roughly one million under the Biden administration, according to CBP data.

The data excludes “gotaways,” the official term used by CBP to describe foreign nationals who illegally enter between ports of entry to evade capture, don’t make immigration claims and don’t return to their country of origin. CBP does not publicly report gotaway data. The Center Square exclusively obtained it from Border Patrol agents. More than two million gotaways were identified by Border Patrol agents under the Biden administration, although the figure is expected to be much higher, The Center Square first reported.

For decades, the northern border has been largely unmanned and unprotected with increased threats of terrorism and lack of operational control, The Center Square reported.

Unlike the 1,954-mile U.S.-Mexico border, there is no border wall, significantly less technological equipment exists and far fewer agents are stationed there.

Officials have explained that the data represents a fraction of illegal border crossers – it remains unclear how many really came through largely remote areas where one Border Patrol agent may be responsible for patrolling several hundred miles, The Center Square has reported.

Despite being understaffed and having far less resources, Border Patrol and CBP agents at the U.S.-Canada border apprehended the greatest number of known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) in U.S. history during the Biden administration – 1,216, or 64% of the KSTs apprehended nationwide, The Center Square exclusively reported.

In February, President Donald Trump for the first time in U.S. history declared a national emergency at the northern border, also ordering the U.S. military to implement border security measures there. After shutting down illegal entries at the southwest border, the administration acknowledged the majority of fentanyl and KSTs were coming through the northern border, The Center Square reported.

The Trump administration has also prioritized increased funding, recruitment and hiring and investment in technological capabilities at the northern border.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Mariane Angela

Foreign political figures aligned with the United Kingdom’s ruling establishment quietly coordinated an international effort to suppress American right-leaning media.

Labour Party files — including internal documents never before released — reveal a coordinated series of maneuvers, strategic deceptions and covert operations that helped deliver U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer to Downing Street,   according to the book by investigative journalist Paul Holden. The campaign operated largely behind the scenes that mirrored the same tactics a corporate, pro-Israel faction inside the Labour Party used to crush dissent during Jeremy Corbyn’s rise, a strategy that dismantled the party’s left flank and reshaped British politics.

Holden’s reporting shows that these operatives built an array of anti-disinformation groups that presented themselves as neutral fact-checkers while aggressively targeting conservative outlets for demonetization, deplatforming and reputational damage. Internal documents and interviews indicate these organizations were never independent; they worked in lockstep with senior Labour figures who sought to contain populist movements on both sides of the Atlantic.

Labour officials celebrated an unexpected election surge in 2017, unaware that a faction inside their own party had been covertly diverting resources to undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Holden’s investigation reveals that senior Labour bureaucrats secretly operated a parallel campaign from Ergon House, funneling money and support to anti-Corbyn candidates while starving the official operation of crucial funds.

A 2020 leaked internal report (860-page dossier) revealed deep factional divisions inside the Labour Party and showed that senior staff privately opposed Corbyn’s leadership and expressed hope that Labour would underperform in the 2017 election.

The book shows that the misuse of donations was far more extensive than previously known and may have breached election spending laws, especially in constituencies where diverted money was reported incorrectly. The party’s refusal to release campaign materials tied to this funding has intensified criticism of its transparency and raised questions about Starmer’s promise to restore trust in government.

After the 2017 election, strategist Morgan McSweeney began shaping Labour Together into an anti-Corbyn vehicle, using wealthy donors and newly created advocacy groups to amplify allegations that would weaken Corbyn’s support. Holden documents that McSweeney failed to report more than £700,000 (approximately $885,000 to $900,000) in donations despite being legally obligated to disclose them, a violation that later resulted in fines.

BBC News reported in 2022 that Labour Together was fined £14,250 (approximately $18,000) for failing to declare more than £730,000 in donations, confirming that key figures in Starmer’s political orbit had already breached U.K. election transparency laws.

By 2019, McSweeney had aligned himself with Starmer’s leadership ambitions, helping him run as a continuity candidate despite planning a sharp ideological shift once in power. Holden concludes that this project ultimately hollowed out Labour’s credibility, leaving the party mired in collapsing public confidence and confronting mounting questions about the integrity of its top advisers.

(Featured Image Media Credit: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer/picture by Simon Dawson/Flickr)