Human smuggling persists along Canada-U.S. border, despite crackdown

Human smuggling networks continue to operate along Quebec's border with Vermont and New York state despite winter conditions and increased law enforcement, according to U.S. Federal Court records about two incidents over the past weekend.

The U.S. Border Patrol disrupted a human smuggling run early Sunday across the Quebec-New York border that involved the high-speed chase of two vehicles, including one ferrying a teenager and two children, which saw agents draw their firearms, according to court records. 

Hours earlier, on Saturday, agents patrolling the Vermont-Quebec border detained two suspected migrants from Latin America — a failed attempt that had been organized, according to court records, by a Canada-based smuggler who has been operating for at least two years. 

Illegal crossings from Canada, long overshadowed by the exponentially larger traffic over the U.S.-Mexico border, are under scrutiny following U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to impose tariffs on Canadian products unless Ottawa stops the flow of migrants and fentanyl over the border. 

The flow of people and fentanyl from Canada into the U.S. remains a fraction of the volumes crossing from Mexico. 

Yet Ottawa recently moved to assuage Trump's concerns by unveiling $1.3 billion in new security spending over the next six years that has seen the RCMP equipped with new Black Hawk helicopters. 

But, despite the winter conditions, tougher border security and Trump's harsher immigration stance, human smuggling networks continue to move people through an area known to U.S. authorities as the Swanton Sector, which runs from the eastern Ontario border with upstate New York to Quebec's border with New Hampshire. 

Most south-bound illegal crossings from Canada occur in this area, primarily across the Ontario and Quebec borders with New York state and Vermont. 

Weekend crossings 

On Saturday, at about 9:15 a.m. ET, the U.S. Border Patrol in Vermont received a report that several people were spotted by a local resident moving along a dirt road roughly two kilometres south of the border and east of Lake Memphremagog. 

Agents soon discovered footprints in the snow and patrols eventually tracked down a Honda Pilot SUV, according to court records. Two people in the back seat, Guatemalan and Mexican nationals, had allegedly crossed on foot into the U.S.  

The front-seat passenger, Saul Mazariegos-Estrada, a Guatemalan national, told agents he was working for a smuggler who had moved him illegally across the border two years earlier, according to the record. 

Mazariegos-Estrada allegedly told agents this was his third smuggling run, that he was paid a fee per person he ferried and that the smuggler in Canada covered gas and hotel costs, according to the court record. 

A search of Mazariegos-Estrada's phone revealed WhatsApp conversations with someone nicknamed "Trabajo 2" which "contained multiple Google Maps pin drops for locations in Vermont" near the border, according to an affidavit filed with the court. 

"These locations are commonly known by [Border Patrol Agents] as locations aliens' smugglers have used."

The messages revealed an apparent successful pickup by Mazariegos-Estrada on Jan. 18. The conversation that day contained screen shots of live GPS tracking of an individual and the message, "Lla cruzaron," which translates from Spanish as, "They crossed."

Mazariegos-Estrada remains in custody facing one count of transporting aliens.

High-speed pursuit

Then, on Sunday, at about 2:20 a.m. ET, 171 kilometres west, near the small town of Churubusco, N.Y., U.S. agents spotted two vehicles travelling together along a road that runs near the border, roughly 33 kilometres southwest of Hemmingford, Que., which has been the site of previous human smuggling runs. 

Events escalated quickly, turning into a high-speed pursuit that resulted in one of the vehicles, a Ford Flex, hitting a turn too fast and then "buried itself in the deep snow in the ditch."

The alleged driver, a U.S. citizen named Karl McMullen, tried to flee and fell in the deep snow, where he remained until handcuffed. He faces one count of transporting aliens and remains in custody.

Agents found eight other people in the vehicle, including two children and a teenager. The court filing stated that six of the eight were U.K. nationals and the others were Indian nationals. 

While this unfolded, another border patrol vehicle pursued the second vehicle, a Chrysler 300, which, at one point slammed on its brakes, as several individuals jumped out and fled into a nearby campground, and then sped off again. 

The chase continued until the Chrysler 300 found itself behind a transport truck that "appeared to slow to almost a complete stop" to block it, said the court filing. That alleged driver, U.S. citizen Bailey Burger, was arrested. A border patrol canine handler then helped locate the group that had fled. Four Indian nationals were found hiding under an RV. They all said they had crossed by foot from Canada. 

Burger told agents this was his fourth smuggling run, that he was paid $100 per passenger and he did it to fund a drug addiction. He is facing one count of transporting aliens and remains in custody..  

One of the passengers in the Ford Flex, a U.K. national, said that he and his family had crossed by foot through woods from Canada by following the Indian nationals. He allegedly told agents that, "they begged McMullen to stop the car because they were scared of how fast the driver was driving," said the court filing.