New and old fears at a well-trodden Canada-U.S. border ahead of Trump’s inauguration [Video]

Standing in a neighbour’s driveway on Perry Mills Road in Champlain, N.Y., less than a kilometre from the border with Canada, Stephen Phaneuf points to fields and forest behind the small blue home. 

“They come out from the fields, out from everywhere,” says Phaneuf, 67, referring to migrants crossing from Canada into the United States, who have been doing so in increasing numbers since 2022.

Phaneuf’s property across the road sits on the banks the Chazy River. Last winter, he said he found a woman and her child sleeping with his pigs in small plastic huts near the road. 

“I felt so bad for them. Didn’t even have shoes on her feet,” Phaneuf said. 

When border patrol officers arrived, Phaneuf said the woman and her son attempted to flee but got caught in the electric fence meant to keep the animals in their pen.