Can someone go into Canada illegally?

1. What “illegally” or “irregularly” crossing means in Canadian terms

Canada and its officials typically use the term "irregular border crossings" to describe people who enter between designated ports of entry, and the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) defines those individuals as persons who entered Canada between official ports of entry and are referred to the IRB’s Refugee Protection Division when eligibility is determined ^[1]; opponents and some political actors prefer the word “illegal,” noting that failing to report at a port can violate the Customs Act and specific immigration regulations that require timely check‑in ^[2].

2. Does the act make someone a criminal?

Crossing between ports of entry is not automatically a criminal offense under Canada’s Criminal Code; instead it is governed by immigration regulations that require persons who did not use a port of entry to check in "without delay," and legal scholars quoted by reporting have emphasized that asylum seekers who come forward voluntarily seeking protection should not be penalized ^[2].

3. What actually happens to people who cross irregularly

Those intercepted are typically processed by border services and, where a protection claim is raised, referred into the IRB’s refugee procedures for admissibility and merits hearings; Canada’s data capture for this population only became systematic after February 2017, and early inconsistencies mean official counts may understate the full picture ^[1].

4. Scale, trends and enforcement efforts

Large numbers have crossed irregularly in some recent periods — reporting compiled from Royal Canadian Mounted Police and government estimates recorded tens of thousands of crossings in short windows during 2017–2018 according to public summaries ^[2] — and agencies such as the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and Public Safety Canada have been expanding surveillance, interdiction, and intelligence‑sharing measures while investing in border infrastructure and targeted efforts against organized crime and illicit drugs ^{[3] [4] [5]}.

5. Border policy, programs and practical pathways that affect crossings

Programs that allowed pre‑approved remote crossings — the Remote Area Border Crossing (RABC) program used by some U.S. residents — are being ended and replaced with new reporting requirements that will change how remote travel is monitored, a policy shift that affects how people can lawfully move across sparsely populated crossing points ^{[6] [7]}; the operational context matters because differences in reporting options and enforcement presence influence both the incentive and the feasibility of irregular crossings.

6. Cross‑border dynamics and U.S. reactions

U.S. authorities track northern‑border encounters separately and state that, while northern apprehensions are far lower than at the U.S.‑Mexico border, they have risen in some years and prompted policy debates in the U.S.; analyses show northern apprehensions remain a small fraction of overall U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions, and seizures of drugs such as fentanyl are overwhelmingly concentrated at the southwest border rather than the Canada‑U.S. line ^{[8] [9]}.

7. Caveats, data limits and competing narratives

Official Canadian counts improved only after 2017 and the IRB cautions early data may be incomplete, so any statement about exact totals carries uncertainty, and political actors frame the same flows differently — refugee and human‑rights organizations emphasize protection obligations while some politicians emphasize security and legal noncompliance — meaning both humanitarian and enforcement lenses shape public debate ^{[1] [2]}.