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The pre-dawn call by U.S. border agents to their Canadian counterparts was shocking: A group of nine people, most of them children, were about to enter Canada on foot.
On Feb. 3 at 6:16 a.m., when the group was spotted, the border between Alberta and Montana was brutally uninviting, covered in snow, dark with a temperature of minus 17 degrees Fahrenheit.
Grainy night-vision images captured by Canadian border cameras showed two little girls in pink winter wear holding a woman’s hand as they trudged through the snow. More children followed in a line. Another adult dragged two suitcases.
The quick intervention by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police crew that found the group was the result of a newly beefed-up border presence across the vast frontier between the United States and Canada. At 5,525 miles, the border is the world’s longest.
Until recently, the border had been described by both nations as “unguarded,” a testament to their close friendship.
But with the return of President Trump to the White House, it has become a flashpoint in the relationship between the two neighbors.
Even before his inauguration, Mr. Trump accused Canada of allowing large numbers of unauthorized migrants to enter the United States. He has made stopping that movement a key demand as he threatens to impose crippling tariffs on Canadian exports to the United States.
After a one-month reprieve, Mr. Trump says those tariffs will now go into effect on Tuesday.
Canada has mobilized. It has deployed more staff and equipment along the border and tightened visa rules that critics say made Canada a steppingstone to enter the United States illegally.
The number of illegal crossings into the United States from Canada was relatively low to begin with, and has now plummeted, indicating that Canada’s response to Mr. Trump’s pressure is working.
But now a new dynamic is emerging at the border: Asylum seekers are fleeing north to Canada as Mr. Trump has embarked on his plan for sweeping deportations.
On any given day, the Coutts-Sweetgrass border crossing in Alberta is an orderly hum of trucks, trains and civilian vehicles.
The communities on either side are close in every sense. Hit a ball hard enough on one of the two baseball diamonds in Coutts, Alberta, and chances are it will land in Sweetgrass, Montana.
Staff Sergeant Ryan Harrison, who heads an integrated border enforcement team, said on a bitterly cold February morning as he drove along Border Road, a gravel lane snaking through plains that marks the border for several miles: “There is close day-to-day communication. These are people we go for dinner with and attend their retirement parties.”
Mr. Trump has been particularly alarmed by a jump in the number of unauthorized migrants entering the United States over the past three years.
Canada has directed 1.3 billion Canadian dollars ($900 million) to enhance border security, adding two Black Hawk helicopters and 60 drones equipped with thermal cameras.
It also tightened requirements for temporary visas that some visitors used to arrive in Canada legally but then enter the United States illegally.
The Canadian government says its recent measures have driven down the number of unauthorized crossings into the United States: About 600 migrants were intercepted at the border in January, down from about 900 in January 2024, according to U.S. data.
Mr. Miller, Canada’s immigration minister, was in Washington, along with other senior Canadian ministers, planning to meet with Trump administration officials in a last-ditch push to avert tariffs.
He was going to explain the measures Canada had taken and how they were working. But he also wanted to talk to U.S. officials about the recent uptick of people arriving in Canada from the United States.
Canada’s focus on the border, against the backdrop of Mr. Trump’s domestic crackdown on migrants, is why the nine people walking into Alberta on Feb. 3 raised alarms: It was unusual to see a group this large crossing on foot in the heart of winter. The presence of young children made it all the more troubling.
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