American independent journalist Tayler Hansen has created an internet stir with videos documenting a side of America's illegal immigration problem that received comparatively little attention during the Biden years.

Illegal immigrants are crossing into the United States from Canada.

'We spoke to multiple Indian nationals out there, and they all said the same thing: that they literally only view Canada as a stepping stone to the United States of America.'

What, you weren't aware of it?

The other border

Most people aren't. The southern border understandably dominated the immigration debate, with Americans accustomed to seeing images of migrants pouring across crossings in Texas and California. But while attention was focused south, illegal crossings along America's enormous northern border were soaring too.

U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions along the Canadian border rose from 6,618 in fiscal 2019 to 24,968 in fiscal 2024 — a 277% increase, according to the Government Accountability Office. The Swanton Sector, covering parts of New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire, alone recorded more than 19,000 apprehensions in 2024, up from just 1,563 five years earlier.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials told the GAO that many foreign nationals without valid documents to enter the United States were first traveling to Canada and then attempting to cross illegally into America.

Hansen has set out to show how it happens.

Major export

He jokingly calls illegal immigrants Canada's newest major export to the U.S.

“Canada's largest export is no longer oil because that's kind of been getting tamped down for us over the years due to them being treated like a Crown colony. … The only business that Canada is actually doing with us — and you can't even call it business at this point — is they're sending all of their illegal immigrants here because they realize they screwed up with their visa system.”

Hansen previously reported extensively on the southern border during the Biden administration. This time he traveled through Canada, investigated smuggling networks, and eventually gained the trust of people offering to move migrants illegally across the border.

The geography makes enforcement extraordinarily difficult. The United States and Canada share nearly 4,000 miles of land and maritime border, much of it far removed from official ports of entry.

“There is no such thing as real border infrastructure in Canada,” Hansen told me. “It is literally you walk across and now you're you're American basically.”

Hansen said he spoke with multiple Indian nationals who regarded Canada not as their final destination but as a route to the United States.

“We spoke to multiple Indian nationals out there, and they all said the same thing: that they literally only view Canada as a stepping stone to the United States of America.”

Goin' south

That phenomenon isn't merely anecdotal. CBP officials told federal investigators that the dramatic increase in northern-border apprehensions in 2023 and 2024 was partly driven by foreign nationals who could legally travel to Canada but lacked the necessary documents to enter the United States.

Hansen argues that the human-smuggling networks operating along the northern border have borrowed techniques from the cartels he observed while reporting in the south.

“They basically just copy and paste the cartels' tactics that they use on the southern border,” Hansen said. “And now they're using it on our northern border.”

Border Patrol apprehensions fell substantially after their 2024 peak and remained at reduced levels through April 2026, according to the GAO.

That doesn't make what Hansen documented any less disturbing.

In his documentary, Hansen made contact with a human smuggler and eventually learned how the operation worked. He describes a decentralized, three-country network involving fixers in India, smugglers in Canada, and accomplices in the United States who receive migrants after they cross.

“It's a three-step operation,” Hansen said. “You have a guy in India, and then you have multiple smugglers on the ground in Canada, and then you have smugglers in the United States of America that then take you to the safe house or take you to the place that you're going to live temporarily and provide the vehicles, provide everything.”

Hansen said one smuggler quoted him $10,000 for the crossing.

When he later confronted people involved in the operation, one offered an extraordinary defense.

“We are not smuggling,” the man told Hansen. “We are helping persons who want to, like, go over there and, like, who have problems here in Canada. So we are just only helping them.”

Hansen wasn't convinced.

“They know exactly what they're doing,” he said.

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Anadolu/Getty Images

Operating with impunity

He says that even after members of one smuggling network became aware someone was leaking their routes, one of its administrators assured him that the routes remained active.

“They are operating with impunity,” Hansen said.

Hansen says Sikhs predominate among the smugglers he encountered, although the migrants being moved include both Sikhs and Hindus.

“They really don't discriminate. As long as you're Indian, they want to bring you across. So you have Hindus, you have Sikhs.”

Canada's enormous temporary-resident population creates another potential problem.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says more than 2.1 million temporary visas and permits expired in 2025 and almost 1.9 million more are due to expire in 2026. Those figures cover temporary residents of all nationalities, not only Indians, although Indian nationals compose a large share of Canada's temporary workers and students.

An expired permit does not automatically mean its holder is illegally remaining in Canada; temporary residents can extend or change their status, obtain permanent residency or leave the country. But Ottawa is actively trying to reduce Canada's temporary-resident population after years of explosive growth.

Stop the madness

Hansen believes tougher Canadian enforcement could give those without legal status another incentive to head south rather than return home.

“What do you think is going to happen if Canada actually starts to enforce expired visas and do deportations?” he asked. “These people aren't going to want to go back to India.”

Northern-border apprehensions have fallen dramatically from their Biden-era peak. But the smuggling infrastructure Hansen documented — fixers openly advertising routes, drivers moving migrants to the border, and accomplices waiting on the American side — raises an obvious question.

If Washington succeeded in making illegal entry across the southern border much harder, how much attention is being paid to the much longer border to the north?

Hansen thinks not nearly enough.

“It's madness that's taking place.”