U.S. Border Patrol is reporting record numbers of migrants attempting to cross the Canadian border into Vermont and neighboring states — prompting the agency to bolster its ranks and apprehend more people in the region in response.

At the same time, the cross-border surge has led federal officials to put new limits on people seeking asylum at the northern border, a move that’s drawn criticism from local immigrant rights advocates.

“Our agents are very busy,” said Josh Cozzens, special operations supervisor for the border patrol’s Swanton Sector, which is based in Vermont but also oversees New Hampshire and parts of northern New York. “We have seen a number of apprehensions that we’ve never seen in our recorded history in this area.”

Migrants who are apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol are taken into custody, at least temporarily, to await a decision on whether they can remain in the country legally. One of the ways to stay legally is to apply for and successfully obtain asylum.

In the current federal fiscal year — which runs from October 2023 through September 2024 — Swanton Sector agents have so far apprehended about 15,600 people, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the border patrol. That’s up from about 5,300 at this time last federal fiscal year and 650 the year before that. (Those last two figures also account for people expelled from the country under a controversial pandemic-era public health order known as Title 42.)

Most recently, the data shows a slight dip to about 2,750 apprehensions in July across the region, versus more than 3,300 apprehensions in June.

Cozzens declined to provide data showing what portion of that increase is in Vermont, specifically, because of “operational and security purposes.” The data shows the Swanton Sector accounts for the vast majority — about 80% — of border patrol apprehensions along the entire northern border so far this federal fiscal year.

In response, Cozzens said the agency is building up its ranks. In recent months, it has stationed groups of 20 to 25 agents across the Swanton Sector who are temporarily reassigned from other border patrol sectors, including on the U.S.-Mexico border.

To be sure, both border patrol staffing levels — and the overall volume of migrant traffic — are still far lower across the entire northern border than across the southern border.

While agents have apprehended about 19,500 migrants across the northern border so far this federal fiscal year, on the southern border, that figure is more than 1.4 million.

But the Swanton Sector, Cozzens noted, has been apprehending more migrants in recent months than some of its counterparts along the southern border — possibly for the first time.

The federal data shows that Swanton Sector apprehensions this federal fiscal year have been higher than in sectors covering the Big Bend region of Texas and a portion of southern California.

“That is something significant that we have never really been able to compare ourselves to,” he said.

The increase in border patrol agents has been noticed by immigrant communities in northern Vermont in recent months, said Enrique Balcazar, an organizer with the advocacy group Migrant Justice.

Speaking in Spanish through a translator, he said the impacts of having more agents on the ground extend well beyond the border.

“Having more agents in the state means there’s going to be more encounters with immigrants who are living and working here — and that’s going to lead to detention, deportation and the separation of families,” said Balcazar, who was nearly deported by U.S. immigration authorities in 2017 and today lives in Chittenden County.

U.S. Border Patrol agents have broad authority to justify stopping vehicles within 100 miles of the border — a zone that covers more than 85% of Vermont’s population.

The southern border has been the main focus of recent moves by President Joe Biden’s administration to curtail access to the country’s asylum system. A June executive order, which is still in effect, largely bars migrants from being granted asylum when U.S. officials deem that the southern border is overwhelmed. It also includes measures to expedite the deportation of people who are deemed ineligible to enter the country.

The administration has also made recent changes to asylum processing at the northern border, though they’re less restrictive, said Brett Stokes, director of Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Center for Justice Reform Clinic, which provides pro bono immigration law services including asylum aid. Still, Stokes and other advocates said the northern border changes could make it harder for migrants to win protection.

The changes alter how U.S. officials process migrants under a longstanding deal with Canada called the Safe Third Country Agreement, which states that people must claim asylum in the first “safe country” they reach, whether that’s the U.S. or Canada. CBS News first reported the changes at the northern border, which took effect Aug. 14.

Under the 2002 agreement, if an asylee crosses the border and applies for protection on the other side, officials could send them back. There are some exceptions to that rule, including for unaccompanied children and for people with a family member who has already been allowed to cross the border.

The August changes, though, require migrants to have documentation ready when U.S. officials screen them to determine whether they are eligible to stay in the country, whereas previously, migrants could ask for the screening to be postponed if they needed more time to gather those documents.

They also reduce the amount of time migrants have to consult with a lawyer before that screening takes place, from at least 24 hours to only a minimum of four. Both changes are designed to “streamline” asylum processing as more people attempt to enter the country from the north, federal officials told CBS News in a statement.

But reducing those timelines, Stokes said, could also make it harder for migrants to find an attorney who would help ensure the government reviews their case properly.

He noted, too, that Vermont already has few dedicated legal resources available to asylum seekers. Research has shown that migrants can be up to five times more likely to win their claim for asylum if they have legal representation versus if they do not.

“They like to throw out these buzzwords of ‘increasing efficiency and access’ to asylum protections and those sorts of things — whereas really, functionally, what’s happening is, they’re decreasing legal safeguards that folks had available to them,” Stokes said, referring to federal immigration authorities.

Lindsay Reid, administrator of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity’s Statewide Asylum Seekers Assistance Program — which helps fund grassroots asylee support networks in Vermont — called the changes “incredibly disappointing.”

“We definitely feel the pinch in terms of the amount of legal resources that are needed, and the inability of many (asylees) to find the type of legal help that they need,” she said.

The changes also come on the heels of the Biden administration’s move last spring to extend Safe Third Country Agreement provisions across the entire northern border regardless of where people cross, not just at official ports of entry such as those on Interstates 89 and 91.

At the time, border patrol was pointing to a tenfold increase year-over-year in migrant apprehensions in the Swanton Sector — and that figure has continued to increase.

Stokes noted that because this uptick in people attempting to cross the northern border is relatively recent compared to the southern border, states such as Vermont don’t have as robust migrant support networks as states like Texas or Arizona do.

“It’s just vastly different,” he said. “There is this whole NGO ‘institution’ set up on the southern border. I mean, you’re dealing with, in any given year, hundreds of thousands of people coming in and out — and needing to provide services to those folks.”

At the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, Reid works with asylee support groups across the state that are based in population centers including Brattleboro, Burlington, Montpelier, Rutland and St. Johnsbury. She said that between December 2023 and June 2024, funding from her program helped support 155 asylum seekers — though emphasized that there are far more people in the state who are likely seeking protection.

When migrants are apprehended at the northern border, they’re often released with instructions to appear in court at a later date, according to Cozzens. That’s in large part because the agency does not have the capacity to prosecute everybody it arrests.

The country’s immigration courts are also facing crushing backlogs, which mean individual cases, such as for those seeking asylum, can take years to process.

Notably, the majority of the migrants that Swanton Sector agents apprehend likely aren’t staying in Vermont after getting released, Cozzens said. Many head for population centers such as Boston or New York City, he said, adding that it’s the proximity of those cities that likely drew them to cross into northern New England or New York State in the first place.

Beyond Stokes’ clinic, the other dedicated legal resource for migrants in the state is the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. The project’s executive director, Jill Martin Diaz, told NBC5 last month that her clinic has had a waitlist of more than 60 people.

Both she and Stokes tied the Biden administration’s recent policy changes to the fact immigration is a major issue in this year’s presidential election. Other immigrant advocates said they, too, had been keeping a close eye on the national campaign rhetoric coming from both Democrats and Republicans.

This year’s federal elections, Diaz told the TV station, are “giving rise to policy changes that are making it difficult for us to provide services and to meet people’s needs.”