PolitiFact: Increases in illegal crossings at the U.S.-Canada border exceed 800% during some periods

Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican who represents the North Country and Adirondack Park, said on Fox News the number of illegal crossings is many times higher than it has been in the past.

“We’ve seen an 800% increase in the Swanton sector, which is the part of the northern border that I represent, in illegal crossings,” Stefanik said on “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” on Jan. 28.

We wondered if the increase in illegal crossings was that big.

The Swanton sector includes an estimated 24,000 square miles and includes northeastern counties in New York, three counties in New Hampshire, and all of Vermont.

Year-over-year increases in illegal crossings have been steady since the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2020, rising from 365 that year to 1,065 for fiscal year ending in September 2022. In fiscal year 2023, the number of people encountered at the border jumped to 6,925, representing the largest year-over-year increase so far. However, if current trends continue, 2024 will outpace the jump in 2023. In the first three months of fiscal year 2024, there have been 2,607 crossings, compared with 1,147 during the same period last year.

So the increase depends on the time period picked.

Stefanik could have seen a U.S. Customs and Border Protection news release from February 2023, which stated that there had been an approximate 846% increase in encounters and apprehensions between Oct. 1, 2022, and Jan. 31, 2023, compared to the same period in fiscal year 2022.

In November, Customs and Border Protection Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia of the Swanton sector posted on X – formerly Twitter – that there had been a 550% increase in apprehensions between fiscal year 2022 and 2023, and that the migrants came from 79 countries. Garcia posted in August that apprehensions in just over…