So Donald Trump wants more border security? Here’s how the RCMP is ramping up efforts

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Windsor, Ont. Ian Smith used to spend most of his days behind a RCMP office, in OTT. As a member of the border integrity unit in power, Constaba says he did not even have to wear his military uniform.

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But this has changed recently.

Smith is now uniform and shields of body shields as he drives a remarkable RCMP to help periodically 800 km from Ontario borders with the United States, as well as his usual surveys.

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His typical day has changed since Canada has pledged a million dollars to strengthen border security in the hope that US President Donald Trump's threats would ignore the threats of US President Donald Trump, however, some of them were achieved.

While Ottawa denied Trump's allegations that illegal immigration and the smuggling of Fntanil from Canada posed a “serious” threat to the Americans, it is still committed to improving border patrols and the migration system in the country, as well as the appointment of the Ventanil Caisar.

Smith said he wanted to play his role.

“We are now 24 hours a period of time now, which is new to us here too,” he said in an interview leading alongside Windsor from the Detroit River, which is part of the border between Ontario and Michigan.

“I think it is important because the crime does not occur only during the daylight hours, as you know, so we hope to deter (criminal) behavior.”

As part of the new approach, RCMP officers are increasingly involved with people who live near the border to collect information and request their help to stop drug trafficking and people to Canada.

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On a newly cloudy day, Smith took short and slow steps across the frozen river to speak with a group of people who were hunting ice, and they asked if they had seen anything suspicious.

He said that the goal is to “be present, be visible and truly secure the border with the best we can.”

Smith said that there are between 30 and 40 officers in the Windsor detachment, including those who were returned from other units and the Ontario Provincial police officers sent to help border security. He was with the separation for nine years, after serving the RCMP unit in Saskatchewan for six years.

In each seizure, six to eight officers patrolling hundreds of kilometers along the American Ontario border from Tobermory on Lake Horon to Port Boroel on Lake Erie, a vast area that includes swamps, lakes and rivers. Drones are an important part of monitoring the unit of these water bodies.

The unit recently received a third drone and officers will be trained to operate the new system.

Sergeant. Ian Demblock, one of the drone operators in separation, said that the devices are deployed to proactively monitor the area or respond to suspicious activities.

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“We use them to get a higher observation point so that we are not limited to the level of ground vision only,” he said after the assembly and the operation of a drone operating outside the separation.

He said that drones are also used by officers who may not have a good vision while they are patrolling water on ships. The drones should be in the vision line, which means that it cannot be transferred further one kilometer from the officer who occupies it.

“We have a lot of space to do patrols here, but members can be spread all over this field, so they will attend the system with them and be able to cover,” said Diplock.

Smith said that the unit has two boats to do water patrols after the ice collapsed and melts in the spring. Several officers have also been trained to conduct monitoring of helicopters that have been rented as RCMP as part of the largest border security plan.

More than half of the allocations amounting to $ 1.3 billion will go over a six -year period in the Ottawa plan to Mounties and will go 355 million dollars to the Canadian Border Services Agency.

RCMP said it has fill out the resources to increase its ability to patrol in the border areas throughout the country.

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The Federal Police Service said it could not provide the total number of officers who were deployed along 8,891 km from the Canadian border and the United States due to “the causes of operational integrity”, but “members were re -developed into areas that have historically attracted irregular immigration flows.”

“The plan aims to discover and disrupt the fentanel trade, introduce new important tools for law enforcement, enhance operating coordination, increase information exchange and reduce unnecessary border sizes,” RCMP spokesman Robin Persepal wrote in a statement.

She said that RCM had received 40 unmanned aircraft from the Canadian armed forces and obtained additional drones, anti -party technology and other monitoring devices last year.

She said that a Black Hawk helicopter was also rented to help prevent “illegal crossings of people, goods and drugs” in both directions across the border.

Mounties is not the only law enforcement agency looking to enhance border security.

Ontario said in January that her plan would witness about 200 provincial police officers, Yazid Border Patrols. Alberta has announced a new honest unit to take patrols in its borders with the United States and Manetoba conservation officers that help in border control in that province.

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Meanwhile, the Canadian Border Services Agency said it would create more than 100 new officers, intelligence and chemical analysts specializing with additional federal funds. CBSA also plans to train more detector teams and get new tools and scanners.

The agency said that the Blizzard operation will target fentanel and other artificial drugs coming inside and outside Canada.

While Trump raises concerns about the flow of fentanel and migrants to the United States, data show that illegal firearms and drugs come to Canada from the south of the border at a threat.

Shared data with the Canadian press indicates that CBSA agents have seized at least 2,345 firearms from the United States since 2022.

More than 24,000 kilograms of various medicines, including more than a kilogram of fentanel, were confiscated during the same period on the borders of the United States and Canada.

The officers of the Windsor RCMP detachment are working on many investigations related to more than 3,891 kilograms of illegal drugs that were seized by CBSA in only two outlets from Windsor and Sarrena, Ant. Since January 2022, they say 386 kilograms have been seized so far in 2025.

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“Criminals are trying to exploit the borders in both directions,” said Jacqueline Ruby, a CBSA spokeswoman in a statement. “The American authorities rely on us in the same way that we depend on to exchange information and determine the threats of our countries.”

Smith, a RCMP officer in Windsor, agrees that the smuggling of illegal firearms and drugs in Canada is a serious case.

In one of these cases, a bag full of pistols was seized after the drone was carrying it across the Saint Claire River, south of Sarina, Oanton, stuck in a tree in 2022.

As for drug trafficking: “It is a big problem, and the amount of medicines that come to Canada.”

Smith said that there is close cooperation across the border between the American and Canadian authorities and immediately inform each other of any large seizures of weapons or illegal drugs.

He said he did not remember that the Americans ever called Windsor RCMP around Canada's fentanel.

Canadians responded to a mixture of anger and frustration with Trump's allegations about Canada, the war of continuous tariffs and his threats to annexation, with some American products and the abolition of flights south of the border.

Smith said his family stops on trips to the nearby Detroit, which Windsor faces from the other side of the river, at the present time.

“Now, I will keep my money in Canada, until the threats of tariffs or customs duties disappear,” he said.

This report issued by the Canadian press was published for the first time on March 16, 2025.

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