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“Sometimes you need to sleep, too,” Normand Faille recently told CTV News. Faille is the fire chief in Lacolle, Que., a small community just a few kilometres from the Canada-U.S. border, and ground zero for an unfolding migration fiasco. In recent weeks, as many as 250 people a day have been illegally entering Canada from the United States. Lacolle’s tiny corps of 30-some-odd first responders simply can’t keep up with the emergency calls.

Some assistance has now arrived. Earlier this month, the Army erected a tent city to hold up to 500 migrants while their applications are processed. The Red Cross has brought in personnel and supplies. But, according to officials in Lacolle, military personnel and Red Cross workers aren’t directly supplementing the town’s emergency efforts. The costs of the crisis, in manpower and money, is still falling largely on them.

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It’s a sorry situation, especially because it was predictable. Indeed, we predicted six months ago that the then-noticeable spike in illegal border crossings into Canada would likely only accelerate once warmer weather arrived. “(For) the first time in generations,” we wrote in February, “there is a real possibility of a genuine crisis on our undefended border with the United States. This is something the federal government must be preparing for.”