A gang dedicated to human smuggling led by undocumented immigrants based in New Jersey has managed to illegally introduce dozens of people into the country from Canada, at a time when crossings from the northern border skyrocket by more than 500%, according to The authorities.
The leaders of the criminal organization charge between $3,000 and $6,000 for each person they help cross irregularly and operate on the poorly guarded border of the United States and Canada, between the Canadian province of Quebec and the state of Vermont, according to court documents consulted by the CBC network and the Daily Mail newspaper.
The Department of Justice filed charges against two of the leaders of this gang in August of last year, identified in August 2023 as Francisco López Padilla, 35, and Simón Jacinto Ramos, according to a statement from the Vermont District Attorney's Office. .
The two men, the statement said, “conspired to commit human smuggling crimes (...) for the purpose of private financial gain.”
A U.S. Border Patrol security camera in the Swanton sector shows two individuals illegally crossing the Canada-U.S. border in January 2023. AP
According to the court records, López Padilla and Jacinto Ramos, a resident of Montreal, Canada, “organized the transportation of the migrants from the Montreal, Canada area, to a remote area of the border with the United States, near Richford, Vermont and They gave instructions to continue their journey.
“The Border Patrol intercepted at least four of these smuggling events between April 2022 and June 2023 that appeared to have been organized by the defendants (…) and involved at least 23 smuggled migrants in total,” he said. the notice.
The prosecutor's office explained that López Padilla faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a minimum of 3 if he is found guilty of the charges against him, while Jacinto Ramos "has not yet been arrested."
The same Vermont District Attorney's Office reported in another statement in November 2023 that another leader of the gang, Jhon Reina Pérez, 34, a resident of New Jersey, is charged with three counts of conspiring with López Padilla and Jacinto Ramos. to be able to illegally cross migrants from Canada.
Reina Pérez pleaded not guilty and, like López Padilla, could serve a maximum sentence of 10 years behind bars.
López Padilla and Reina Pérez operated the gang from New Jersey, the city in which they supposedly settled, according to the Daily Mail newspaper, after being released by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE), after be arrested for crossing illegally from Mexico.
The newspaper explained that both men were able to stay in the United States awaiting immigration procedures, and prosecutors allegedly linked them to at least five incidents of frustrated human trafficking in Vermont, in which “at least 25 migrants” were able to cross.
Up to $6,000 per trip
One of the gang's drivers, who was in charge of picking up immigrants once they crossed the country's northern border to take them to different parts of the United States, was arrested during one of those trips and the police
found several people hiding in back seats. of the car
, according to court documents obtained by the newspaper.
Elmer Bran Gálvez was detained in the early morning hours of June 9, 2023 near the border in Franklin, Vermont, and authorities were able to determine that he was awaiting trial in immigration court, the Border Patrol agent explained. James Loomis, in a sworn statement cited by the newspaper.
The driver assured that he had made about seven trips of this type since 2022, for which he charged $2,000 for each one, obtaining just over $14,000.
In addition, he identified López Padilla as his boss, who asked him to delete all the messages they exchanged on WhatsApp.
The US authorities would have been able to complete the investigation against the gang, after tracking the cars and cell phones used by the aforementioned leaders and by the people they hired as drivers to transport the migrants, thanks to obtaining a court order to be able to monitor these assets.
Migrants hiding in the back of a vehicle in which they were being transported after illegally crossing the border with Canada, on November 9, 2023. Chief Border Patrol Agent, Rosario Pete Vasquez
A “lucrative” business
Mathieu Bertrand, head of Serious and Organized Crime and Border Integrity for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), explained to CBS News that “a lot of money is made from smuggling people across our borders,” which is why there are “multiple organized crime groups seeking to participate in this lucrative market.”
Bertrand said the RCMP, responsible for policing the Canadian border,
currently has limited legal tools
to detain people at crossings.
“If we intercept people before they cross the border, in fact, they are not committing any crime,” he said, so authorities decide to let people approach to see if there is an illegal attempt to cross.
“It is very difficult to identify the elements of the crime to charge these people and bring them to court.”
A dangerous journey… and popular
Noticias Telemundo reported in November that more and more immigrants, mostly Mexicans, decide to try to cross the border crossing from Canada - the longest in the world at 5,525 miles -, despite the risk and warnings from authorities of adverse weather conditions. due to temperatures of 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 Celsius).
The most up-to-date figures from CBP show that in fiscal year 2023, a total of 189,402 encounters were recorded at the northern border, which includes both people who come to ports of entry legally to surrender to authorities and request asylum, as well as those who are captured when trying to cross illegally into United States territory.
[CBP mobilizes dozens of agents to the northern border due to an increase in migrants crossing from Canada]
In that last area, the Border Patrol arrested 10,021 people in that period.
An analysis by Noticias Telemundo shows that Mexicans lead illegal crossings from Canada, with 4,868 people intercepted.
Other countries such as India (1,630), Venezuela (753) and Guatemala (443) also rise to the top places.
In 2022, in contrast, only 882 arrests of Mexicans, 237 of Indians, and five from Venezuela were recorded.
Although the figures on the northern border are modest compared to the 2,045,838 encounters that CBP recorded on the border with Mexico during 2023, experts consulted by Noticias Telemundo warn about the trend that is being registered in the north.
“Government immigration policies do not change the need or reasoning of people who decide to cross in one direction or another.
Sometimes all they do is make it riskier to do so.
These are people who are fleeing and seeking protection and sometimes they have to make these impossible and dangerous decisions,” explains Shauna Labman, academic and director of the Human Rights Program at the University of Winnipeg.
“We are seeing high levels of migration around the world, the highest since World War II.
People are moving at a faster rate than in the past, and that is also seen in the north.
There have been increases in migrants at that border, which differs by nationality,” explains Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to improve immigration and integration policies.
A hot topic in the elections
With many voters still viewing immigration as one of the top three issues facing the country, and using rhetoric usually linked to talk about the chaotic southern border, Republicans involved in the process of presidential nomination of their party spoke during the start of the primaries about the worrying situation at the crossing with Canada.
While Donald Trump described the outlook as “not so good,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that what was happening was slowly getting worse and Nikki Haley, former US ambassador to the United Nations, assured that she was willing. do everything possible to stop these illegal crossings, including building “a big wall.”
In New Hampshire, Haley referred to this border several times at numerous campaign events, as she asserted that there was not "enough" talk about that crossing, from where she indicated that hundreds of terrorism suspects had been apprehended.
CBP statistics show that nearly 500 people on the terrorist list were detained on the northern border between October 2022 and September, compared to 80 on the southern border.
Speaking to reporters Saturday at an event in Peterborough, Haley vowed to “do whatever it takes to keep people out.”
Apprehensions at the northern border have increased over the past three fiscal years, although they are a mere fraction of the arrests at the southern border.
In the Swanton sector, which includes New Hampshire, Vermont and parts of upstate New York, 6,925 people were arrested between October 2022 and September, a substantial increase from 1,065 apprehensions the previous year.
A Suffolk University/Boston Globe/USA Today poll of New Hampshire voters this month, which showed widespread concern about the number of immigrants entering the country, found that only 37% were concerned about the border. north, while 61% were not.
When the results were limited to Republicans, 64% said they were worried, while 32% said they were not.
The northern border in the new immigration package negotiated in Congress
The issue is not entirely new for Republicans.
Early last year, more than two dozen House members formed the Northern Border Security Caucus.
Matthew Knoedler, a spokesman for Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., the caucus co-chair, wrote in a message that Kelly “is encouraged to see candidates in the 2024 presidential race also focusing on real needs throughout the northern border of the United States, as well as on our southern border.”
As Senate negotiators worked on a bipartisan immigration package that has Biden's blessing, change could soon come to both borders.
What's more, in March, the federal government reached an agreement with the Canadian government, which allows both countries to return asylum seekers who cross their common border.
A spokesperson for the Canadian Embassy in the United States said Canada “is working with its closest friend and greatest ally, the United States, to strengthen the protection of our shared border, land, air and waterways.”
“We are actively collaborating with our US counterparts to share intelligence and detect and intercept illicit activities at the earliest opportunity.
“Our countries share the same goal: to keep the border open to legitimate trade and travel, but closed to terrorists, criminals, and threats to the health and safety of citizens,” he added.