'I recognize these footsteps': How Trump and 'coyote' smuggling changed life at the border

On a country road near the border town of Franklin, Que., a rusted steel rail, five metres in length, marks where Canada ends, and America begins.

Bent signs bolted to the rail threaten fines and imprisonment should violators cross the boundary into the United States, a warning many people are choosing to ignore simply by walking around the barrier.

On Tuesday night, as wet snow and rain fell, a team of RCMP border enforcement officers took a CTV news crew to the area to demonstrate how the Mounties were working to stop illegal crossings at these unprotected entry points.

“It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” said Cpl. Samuel Perrault-Magny as he shone his flashlight in search of suspicious tracks in the snow. “I recognize these footsteps - they (belong to) officers and a dog-officer from last night. They were looking for a family.”

A plush toy kitten lay in the middle of the road as proof that the migrants had passed that way. The family had crossed a swath of woods a day earlier with a small child. The Mounties apprehended the migrants and turned them over to the Canadian Border Security Agency to determine if they should be sent back to the U.S.

Cpl. Samuel Perrault-Magny of the Quebec RCMP Integrated Border Enforcement Team searches an area near the U.S. border for suspicious tracks .

Smuggling network

Perrault-Magny would not give details about where or how the family was caught - but he did say that the RCMP has access to a wide range of resources to patrol Quebec’s 815-kilometre border with the U.S.

The Mounties monitor the border with helicopters and surveillance planes and patrol boats on St. Lawrence River. Officers equipped with night vision equipment take positions in tree stands used for hunting to scan the horizon. They patrol on skidoos and drive four-person all-terrain vehicles called “Argos.”

Dozens of surveillance cameras are also strategically hidden in the deep woods.

Cpl. Perrault- Magny pointed out that migrants are sometimes led through the forests by a guide or a “coyote.” Once on the Canadian side, a driver waits for them, ready to take them to Toronto or Montreal.

A 2023 intelligence report from the Canada Border Services Agency revealed that smugglers were charging as much as $45,000 for help sneaking into the country.

The Quebec RCMP Integrated Border Enforcement Team prepare to drive an 'Argo' through the woods to search for migrants and smugglers.

Change in tactics

Vancouver immigration lawyer and analyst Richard Kurland obtained the confidential document through a freedom of information request. Kurland says those exorbitant fees may also be financing terrorism.

“The terrorist groups use illegal smuggling as part of their financing operations for doing bad things. So, we have to cut that revenue and work together (with the Americans) to combat the smuggling organizations that are literally working both sides of the border,” Kurland said.

The high price set by smugglers is also changing the way migrants are crossing the border. CTV spoke to two residents, one American, the other Canadian who live a stone’s throw from each other on opposites of the boundary in two separate countries.

Both homeowners say they’ve seen migrants drive off the road, through the field right up to the steel rail and abandon their idling car as they run away. Tow trucks often need to be called in to remove their vehicles.

“I suspect renting or even buying a car may be cheaper than paying a passeur (smuggler),” said Quebec resident Louise Gobeil, who has lived steps from the border for three decades.

Online advice

Over the years, Gobeil has seen different groups of migrants pass through, depending on the geopolitical crisis of the moment. She’s seen Muslims cross in the aftermath of the Syrian civil war and Haitians flee after their country was taken over by gangs.

Just recently, she saw video of the road in front of her house posted on social media. The post was about getting into Canada illegally – an indicator that the area will soon be an even hotter spot for migrants transiting through as political winds shift again.

Quebecer Louise Gobeil lives steps from the U.S border.

Gobeil says 90 per cent of the migrants she sees are usually heading southbound, but she’s noticed a reversal since the election of Donald Trump.

Cpl. Perrault-Magny says he’s concerned people being driven out by Trump will attempt a run for the border during the winter.

Earlier this month, Perrault-Magny oversaw an arrest of the parents of a three-week-old baby.

“We hear heartbreaking stories …Sometimes they have a lot of violence in their own country and they’re looking for a better country,” said the corporal, who recently returned from parental leave. “They are looking to Canada to help - but there is a legal way to enter the country.”

“We want people to not cross in the middle of the night, especially with young children. Through the woods is not the way.”

'Overwhelmed' northern border

Once he’s ushered in as president in a month’s time, Trump has promised to deport an estimated 11 million undocumented migrants.

The CBSA report warned more than a year before Trump’s election that the border had become a “bilateral irritant.”

Trump’s pick to be border czar, Tom Holman, uses harsher words to describe the northern border. He calls it a “huge national security issue” and says that agents at the Canada-U.S. border are “overwhelmed.”

And while crossings at the northern border are a trickle compared to what’s happening at America’s southern boundary, Mexico has been able lower the numbers, while the problem is growing in the north.

According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, more than 19,000 migrants illegally crossed over from Canada between January and September of this year. That’s nearly double what it was in 2023 and the last quarter hasn’t been tabulated yet.

Perrault-Magny says the Mounties have always and will continue to help American border officers apprehend migrants.

On Monday another family of three was detected by Mounties patrolling the cut tree line between the countries called the “slash.” The officers alerted the U.S. border officers so they could make an arrest after the family crossed.

Roxham Road deja vu?

The RCMP is taking the impact of Trump’s deportation threat seriously and says it has contingency plans to deal with a potential surge. It involves possible re-deployment of officers to border units and even perhaps building temporary structures to hold people such as what was done previously at Roxham Road.

Last year the Canadian and U.S. governments amended the Safe Third Country Agreement to force people seeking asylum to make the claim in the first country where they arrive. It was an attempt to stop people from trekking to Roxham Road, the rural Quebec stretch that gained international notoriety as an unofficial crossing.

Before Roxham road was shut down in March 2023, the RCMP say more than 39,500 people crossed into Canada by foot to claim asylum in 2022.

Quebec which used to account for 90 per cent of illegal crossings, has now seen a significant reduction in numbers to approximately 600 migrants this year. But the potential remains for a surge that surpasses what happened at Roxham at a different site through the woods.