Front Burner - Inside a human smuggling network in Canada

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

This year, the number of Central and South American migrants trying to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border reached a record two million people. Whether people wade through the Rio Grande or trek across the desert for days, the trip is becoming more treacherous. Nearly 750 people have died trying to cross the border this year so far. Now, some are trying a different route through Canada. A CBC investigation found smuggling networks operating in Toronto and Montreal are priming the flow of people through a region called the Swanton Sector, and making thousands of dollars per run across the border. Today, investigative journalist Jorge Barrera takes us through what his reporting uncovered.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. So this year, the number of Central and South American migrants trying to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border has reached a record high. Two million people made the trek trying to reach the United States.

And the trip is really treacherous. Nearly 750 people have died trying to cross over this year so far. And so because of this, some people are trying a different route. This is Yazuri. The father of her child walked 10 days through the desert to get to California. He didn't want me to go through that because he suffered so much. He didn't want me to suffer through that. From her village in Mexico, Yuzuri spoke to a smuggler

who told her he could get her to the U.S. from Canada. They told us it was just a three-hour walk and that we had to pass through only a cornfield and a city. They said there wasn't much danger. So Yuzuri left her baby daughter with her mother and boarded a bus to Mexico City, where she'd catch a flight to Toronto. But when she arrived, she found the journey wasn't as easy as promised.

When we arrived, they told us we had to get out and run. So we got out and ran. It wasn't at all like what they told us. My colleague Jorge Barrera has been investigating the smuggling networks operating in Canada, charging thousands of dollars to bring people across this thickly forested stretch of the border around Quebec and New York State. And he's here with me today to tell us more about what his reporting uncovered. Jorge, thank you for being here. It's always great to have you. It's always a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

So you've spoken with a number of women I know who've made this journey from Mexico to Canada to the United States. But before we get into that, I wonder if you could start by telling me a bit of what you heard about what's driving these women from their homes to the United States in the first place. Well, I spoke to five women in sit-down formal interviews, each of them outside of hotels in America, waiting for their next stage in their journey. And they all left Mexico for similar reasons, poverty, difficulty, making enough money to support their children. And also the violence that they say women face. And some of the women I spoke to had daughters.

And the violence faced by women in Mexico made them worry about being able to actually have enough money to provide the security for their daughters. I decided to come because sadly, in Mexico, there are no jobs to be found, especially not now. There's too much femicide, too much danger for women, and the salary is so minimal that it's not enough. It's just not enough. Now that my daughter is growing, I will have more and more expenses. I decided to come here mainly for her.

Also, troubles and threats from the narco world. Poverty, violence, insecurity, corruption. Those are the reasons that these women cited for wanting to leave. Why go through Canada? women cited for wanting to leave. Why go through Canada? Well, the Mexico-U.S. border is a dangerous place. You have to do things like wade through the Rio Grande or walk for days through the desert. And there are a lot of people who are trying to move through there, just 2 million apprehended just this year. And so Canada and the routes through Canada are sold as safe revenues to get into the U.S. And as a Mexican national, you don't need a visa to come to Canada.

You just need to fill out an electronic travel authorization form that takes you a few minutes online. So these are the things that make a route to the U.S. through Canada attractive to people. Right, right. It's so much easier to fly into like Toronto or Ottawa or Montreal. But why not stay in Canada once they're here and make a life for themselves here? Well, in many cases, you know, the women we spoke to said that they decided to come through Canada to the U.S. in Mexico. So some of them did not even think about seeing Canada as a final destination. They just saw it as a through point. Others said that they couldn't make a go of it here. It was very difficult to find work. A lot of offers to pay them under the table, below the minimum wage,

that they would be worked hard and get little benefit from it. They also lacked the networks or community support that exists in the United States. Some of them already had family living in the U.S. Others had people from their own communities living in a town that they wanted to go stay because they thought, hey, there's people from my hometown. There's people from my home region. This will be easier for me. But when they came to Canada, they were essentially at the mercy of smugglers who were arranging for their journey across.

So they really did not have any opportunity to actually build a life. There is no chance that they could make a go of it here because all their interactions were with those who saw their relationship with them as purely transactional. How much money did they ask these women to pay to facilitate this journey from Mexico to Canada to the U.S.? Well, they would paint, as one woman described, Yuzuri Martinez-Alvarez, they paint a very pretty picture of what they can provide. We found a person who had crossed their whole family over and we asked them for the contact information of the man who could bring us here.

When we started communicating with them, they said yes and they painted a very pretty picture. They talk about easy journeys through cornfields and by cities across the border easily to waiting vehicles that will take you to whatever point you would like to go. No problem, you know, no issues. And it's safe. That's why we can charge you these smugglers say, between four to $6,000 a person for these journeys, and people will pay for them because they say this is a sure thing. 100% secure, we'll get you into the US. And they structured their payments in different ways. Sometimes they would ask for a specific deposit. Other times they would say, listen, you can pay half now and then the other half when we get across. But bottom line is these are very, very expensive trips that these smugglers try to convince people to take.

And it takes a lot of work for people to raise this kind of money. In our interviews with the women, their families contributed to the totals. They emptied their whole life savings. They were charging me $3,000 in Canada and $3,000 here in the U.S. So these smugglers are painting this very different picture of what it's like to cross a border compared to making that really perilous trek, right, from Mexico to the U.S.

And so what is it like in reality? You know, take me through what actually happened. And maybe let's start with with when people you spoke to landed in Canada. One woman landed and once she had the money, she told the smuggler i'm ready to go and the next day someone came to pick her up in a 4x4 pickup truck and took her to montreal along with you know three other men where she would wait in a parking lot of a hotel in montreal other women we spoke to actually described this the same process not all of them were picked up uh two women we spoke to said that they were actually told to go to a dollarama in toronto i went there and i saw him he was parked in the dollarama parking lot he introduced himself and he said you have to make the transfer right now. We're getting together to go. So I made the transfer and I realized that the other people at the gas station

were calling him one by one. When I saw the other girl, I calmed down because I hadn't been feeling so sure about things. He actually told me to get inside the pickup truck, but I told him, no, I'm good outside. It's sunny. I'm good out here. I wanted to see more people. And when I saw that the other people

waiting were also the people crossing and I saw my friend who's also a woman I calmed down a bit and I told myself I'd go through with it and there from that dollarama parking lot they also ended up in the parking lot of a Montreal hotel. And from the parking lot, sometimes they switch vehicles and then they're taken to a road running parallel to the Quebec, New York state border. And this trip, this final phase of the trip on the Canada side usually starts when it gets dark. And so they're taken down this road, car stops, and multiple women describe this exact moment. The car stops, the doors open, there's a guide with them, and they're told to run. And so they run across this field, the one we spoke to crossed in early and mid-June.

And so they said that the grass wasn't very high in these fields and they're running. And every time they see headlights coming on the highway behind them, they throw themselves down because they're afraid that if anyone sees them, they're going to get arrested and they keep running until they hit the tree line and enter into really thick forest, really thick brush with swamp land and water. And people, they get lost and their guides get lost and they're wandering around for hours, not knowing which direction they're heading until, you know, they're told before they cross, listen for traffic. And so they're wandering and wandering and wandering and they finally make it through. Tired. It's still dark. They're wet. They're muddy. And they don't know that they've actually more often than not been

already caught on border cameras. Yeah, I want to get to that in one second. But like it strikes me that this terrain in the wintertime, especially it could be incredibly dangerous. Hey, especially it could be incredibly dangerous, hey? This past February, a family from India put their lives in the hands of a smuggler to get taken into the U.S. and they were found frozen to death just meters from the Minnesota border in Manitoba. On January 12th, they arrived at Toronto's Pearson Airport.

Somehow by January 18th, they went from Toronto to Manitoba, an hour south of Winnipeg, east of Emerson, where their bodies were found the next morning. Police can't confirm how they got there. And this death actually reverberated across the border when we spoke to U.S. Border Patrol that monitors the U.S. side of things. this is something that they know can happen. In spite of this risk from ice, snow, people are still crossing in the winter through the Quebec-New York state border, even though there's more chance that you'll get caught because there's no foliage to hide you.

And this is a going concern. And the people who are guiding people across these guides, these smuggling guides, they actually don't care about the well-being of the people they're shepherding through and are known to abandon people if the heat gets too much for them or slowing down. You mentioned before that often when people come out of this forested area, they don't realize it, but they've already been caught on camera. So tell me what you mean by that. So all along the border, there are these cameras, they're strapped to trees, they're connected to solar panels, and they're constantly snapping photos whenever their sensors are tripped off. And they're all in certain regions across the border, especially in this high crossing area. And the moment someone crosses, there's this picture that's

snapped of them and it's streamed to the headquarters of the border patrol area that's in charge of basically monitoring from the little shred of the New Hampshire-Quebec border all the way across Vermont, all the way across to Eastern Ontario, which is across from St. Lawrence County in New York State. So all of that stuff is under the eye of what's called the Swanton Sector, which is based out of Vermont. And this is the headquarters and communications headquarters as well. So all the images go to this headquarters and they send them out to the individual border patrol detachments where people are crossing so they get the image and they actually can pinpoint to a certain degree of accuracy where the someone is crossing and then

they launch these searches through the forest literally agents and flashlights searching for people. And the women we spoke to talked about hiding in the forest as they see these beams from flashlights sweeping near them. And on top of that, you have, you know, U.S. Border Patrol scouring nearby roads looking for any vehicles with out-of-state license plates that are usually a tip-off to the smuggling getaway vehicle that's been sent to retrieve someone coming across. Right. So the outcome here is really counter to what these people have been sold by the smugglers, which is that this is like an easy, sure shot. This is how you can easily get into the United States.

this is how you can easily get into the United States. Inevitably, most likely, you take this journey, you pay the money, and it'll lead you right into the hands of U.S. Border Patrol. Right. And the women that you interviewed, they had all been caught, right? They were all caught either in the vehicle that was waiting to get them or they were caught in the forest waiting to get picked up. U.S. Border Patrol was on them almost immediately after they crossed. You see in the court records of their apprehensions where the time that Border Patrol gets the tip off, they see images of groups crossing. They zero in on the location and then they press in. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem.

Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income?

That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I know that as part of your reporting, you actually arranged to meet a smuggler. Tell me about that experience. But first, how do you get in contact with a smuggler? How does that work? Well, these smugglers operate in the the open you know people find out about them

through word of mouth through family you know through i heard this person got through i i know who their contact is it can pass you a number that's that's how part of it that's how it works that's how people get to know uh how to get in contact with these networks, these human smuggling networks. But they also literally advertise on certain social media platforms like Facebook or Telegram, which is, and Telegram is how I came in contact with a smuggler. I got on this Telegram channel called Mexicans in Toronto, and I just posted a message saying, hey, I'm looking for passage to the US. Can anyone help me? And I got responses in my inbox. And I started a conversation with one which led to a meeting in a Toronto park. And at our meeting in Toronto, I gave him a deposit of $500 to secure my spot for a smuggling run.

And then he broke down the journey for me. I would pay $3,300. Once I got into the vehicle, he would come get me. And then we would go to Montreal. And then from Montreal, I would be taken to the border and a guide would take me across through a cornfield. And there would be a vehicle waiting for me on the other end and take me to New York City. He said it was 100% secure. I had nothing to worry about and I wouldn't be abandoned. 100% secure. I had nothing to worry about and I wouldn't be abandoned.

It seems like it's such a big risk for someone like him to take, right? Like, why do you think he does it? Well, Jesus said that he did it because he wasn't making enough money in the job that he had in Toronto. He said he found some cleaning work, but he could only get six hours a day, three to four days a week, making about $14 to $15 an hour. And he said he was in Canada to find ways to send money home to his mother, who he said had diabetes and two younger siblings. He claimed he wasn't making a ton of money off of this, that of the $500 deposit that I passed on to him, he said he only made $50 off of that. And that he was only a gatekeeper, that he was only a small link in a chain, that he didn't really know

much beyond what happened after he got the deposit and he picked up someone and took them to you know another location Toronto for the journey to Montreal that he didn't know anything uh beyond that and what's interesting is that you know on the other side all these people who are who are being caught coming up to pick up those who are crossing over, a lot of the drivers are actually undocumented people who are themselves putting themselves at risk. Being undocumented by going up to the border, they know that it's a risk, but they still take it. And from interviews with U.S. law enforcement, it seems that even if you make it successfully make it successfully through sometimes you're left in the debt of these human smuggling organizations and and it's believed that that's why you see

so many undocumented people being sent to do these pickups and being caught because the people pulling the strings are never going to put themselves in that sort of risk so even though it's fairly dangerous for someone who's undocumented, who recently crossed, to go back to the border for something like this, they still are apparently forced to do it. And what do we know, if anything, about the people pulling the strings? Like if this guy, guy Jesus is to be believed he's like a very small cog and so so what do we know about who's behind these smuggling networks they they appear to be transnational organizations in that there's their points of contact are Mexico Canada US and they all sort of coordinate together because the

people being sent to retrieve those who have been smuggled through, you know, they're given the same location that the people being smuggled through are told to go. The individual who was sent to pick up Yuzuri Martinez Alvarez while they were doing this border run, they were actually under investigation by a multi-agency drug task force out of New York City that believed that this individual, his name was Jose De Sala Garcia, was a top lieutenant for a Queens, New York City-based drug organization that imported fentanyl from Mexico. So maybe that case will crack open, you know, the links with Canada and possibly even Mexico. So we know that group imported fentanyl from Mexico. But there's always someone in the background. There's always someone who's coordinating. You

always see hints of this in the court record. And those are the ones that you actually need better cross-border between law enforcement, cross-border coordination to sort this out. The women that you interviewed, I know that we talked about how they were all apprehended, but where are they right now? Like what could come of them? All of them, they went from, you know, U.S. Border Patrol to jail in Plattsburgh, New York to face the federal misdemeanor charge of, you know, being in the country illegally. And all of them are convicted to time served, then get transferred into the custody

of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which allowed them to, through their legal representative, to actually get on flights, sort of on one-time waivers to go to different points in the US where they will then wait for their process to go through, points in the U.S. where they will then wait for their process to go through,

which could take years. You know, they claim asylum and then they can appeal. But their stories are far from over. And even those that do end up getting deported, they still keep trying to come back. And that's what we're seeing a lot of is that people who have actually lost their cases and been sent back to Mexico two, three, four times are trying to come in through Canada. So even if you do get sent back once, it doesn't mean that it won't be tried again. Okay. Wow. Jorge, thank you for this.

This is really interesting. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.