All ministries and departments in the governments of Canada and the US are allocated a budget, some federal, some state/provincial and ultimately from the city which they are administering.
The size of these budgets heavily relies on the taxes collected, and the health of the economy. In the large scheme of things, the budget is usually completely allocated in most cases based on the performance and needs of various agencies and departments.
Law enforcement officials need to lobby the agencies responsible by producing tangible results, and show that they deserve the budget. If there is no progress or good performance, then either a higher budget is given because the police agency showed numbers that more money was needed to hire more officers and so fourth, or budget cuts are made to punish the agency for being ineffective with what they already have, but in countries such as the US and Canada budget cuts are usually made when there is not enough money or when there is a budget surplus compared to some level of satisfactory performance already achieved by these police departments.
Either way, with the exception of maybe a few large cities within 25 km of the US-Canadian borders, most of the urban police departments that are close to the border, that can respond to aide border officials in the case of an emergency a local border protection contingent is not staffed or equipped enough to handle on their own, are based in small towns that dot the landscape. These small towns are usually allocated a budget on the assumption that they are there to solely police the areas within their jurisdiction, and what this would cost. Policing the borders is up to border protection agencies, and they get their own budget allocated to them accordingly separate from the budget of local police departments.
As a result, there are ways for smugglers to exploit this by engaging in hit and run tactics, where they do not even come into contact with border agents and local law enforcement agencies, but still have to engage in pursuits as these criminal elements abuse the system. Every time a call is responded to it costs the taxpayer anywhere from dozens to hundreds of dollars at a minimum, and that’s just to respond to a call with a single officer, let alone to press charges, conduct a complex criminal investigation involving numerous officers and police specialists, commence the criminal prosecution process and incarceration costs.
So no wonder chipping away at the budget, such as purposefully calling the police and emergency services for false calls, is now a criminal offence. But if smugglers are capable of smuggling drugs, for example, millions of dollars, and are not intimidated to engage in gunfights against border patrol, police and the army, then we can automatically assume that they can use an array of abusive tactics in order to undermine the currently established system, as a smoke screen to squeeze border protection services like a lemon.