FORT FAIRFIELD, Maine — Three Chinese citizens were arrested before sunrise on Wednesday after allegedly trying to cross the northern U.S.-Canada border illegally near Fort Fairfield, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Fort Fairfield Border Patrol agents noticed suspicious activity along the border prior to the arrests, a Houlton Sector Facebook posting reported.
At the time, a driver from New York, also a Chinese citizen who is already in immigration proceedings, was also arrested, agents said.
In the past year, the Houlton sector has seen a dramatic rise in illegal crossings along Maine’s 611-mile remote northern border.
In a six-week period from October to mid-November, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Houlton sector had 53 encounters that resulted in 27 people who will be federally prosecuted, a 178 percent increase over last year for the same time period, according to customs and border protection data.
