Canadian police announced that 6 people were found dead in swamps near the US border in Quebec

Montreal – The Akwesasne Mohawk Police Department said late Thursday that it was investigating the discovery of six bodies in a swampy area of ​​Quebec near Canada’s border with New York state. Police said they are awaiting the results of an autopsy and toxicology tests to determine the cause of death.

They said they were still trying to identify and place the dead in Canada. It was not immediately known if they were migrants trying to cross the border.

“The first body was found at approximately 5:00 p.m. in a swampy area in Tse-Snayhne, Aquisasny, Quebec,” police said in a statement on social media. There is no threat to the public at this time.”

Last month, the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Department and St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Police reported a recent increase in illegal entry through their lands and waterways. The statement said some of the migrants required hospitalization. In January, the force noted that people involved in people smuggling had attempted to exploit the beaches along the St. Lawrence River in the area.

US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a plan last week to plug a loophole in an immigration agreement that allowed thousands of immigrant asylum seekers to move between the two countries along a backcountry route connecting New York state with Quebec.

The deal, which closed an illegal border crossing point 66 miles east of Akwesasne, took effect on Saturday.

For two decades, the so-called Safe Third Country Agreement between the US and Canada only at official border crossings, meaning that US and Canadian authorities were unable to turn away asylum seekers who used the illegal Roxham Road crossing.

As CBS News immigration correspondent Camilo Montoya-Galvez reports, under the deal reached this month, the existing agreement will now apply to migrants crossing the US-Canada border between official border crossings as well, a change Canadian officials have long pushed for, officials said. Americans.

Nearly 40,000 asylum seekers crossed into Canada without permission in 2022, the vast majority along the unofficial Roxham Road crossing between New York and Quebec, according to The Canadian. government figures.

In contrast, the Border Patrol processed 3,577 migrants who crossed into the United States illegally from Canada in 2022, according to the Government data. While illegal crossings into the US along the northern border have increased in recent months, rising to 628 in February, they are still well below immigration levels recorded along the southern border, where thousands of migrants are processed daily.