A federal judge sentenced a New York man to 60 months in prison after he attempted to smuggle six Indian migrants from Canada to New York last April. During the smuggling attempt, the boat in which he was transporting the migrants began to sink.
On March 1, Brenda K. Sannes, Chief United States District Judge for the Northern District of New York, sentenced Brian Lazore, age 45, resident of Hagansburg, New York, to 60 months in prison for conspiracy to smuggle aliens and three counts alien smuggling. , according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York. Lazore pleaded guilty to the charges in August 2022.
On April 28, 2022, an off-duty police officer in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada, saw a boat leave the Monte Carlo Hotel with six to eight people on board, according to court documents obtained by Breitbart Texas. Canadian law enforcement officers responded to the area and saw the boat approaching the New York coast begin to sink. The Canadian officials notified Swanton Sector Border Patrol officials in New York.
Massena Station Border Patrol officers worked with the Saint Regis Tribal Police Department, the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service and the Hogansburg-Akwesasne Volunteer Fire Department (HAVFD) to rescue migrants, according to information obtained from Swanton Sector Border Patrol officials, reported Breitbart Texas. at the time.
Members of the HAVFD and Border Patrol agents arrived and noticed the boat was nearly submerged near the bank of the New York River at Akwesasne. The boat was almost submerged by this time.
Court records indicate that the air temperature at the time was 32 degrees Fahrenheit and the water temperature was a dangerous 40 degrees.
HAVFD rescue teams deployed a lifeboat that recovered the other six occupants. None of the migrants had life jackets or other safety equipment.
Rescuers treated the people for hypothermia and handed them over to border police officers. The officers identified six of the occupants as citizens of India illegally residing in the United States. The boat’s seventh occupant, a US citizen, was later identified as Brian Lazore.
One of the Indian migrants later told the Border Police investigator that they had informed Lazore that none of them could swim. He said Lazore had not provided any water safety vests or equipment, the indictment said.
Prosecutors said Lazore admitted he was paid to smuggle the Indian migrants, but the amount of the payment was not disclosed in court records.
In addition to the five-year prison sentence, Judge Sannes ordered an additional two years of supervised release following his incarceration. He was not fined.
The Swanton sector is experiencing an unprecedented number of migrant crossings from Canada to New York, Vermont and New Hampshire, Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia told the Champlain Valley’s ABC22 reporters.
“We are seeing traffic all over the AOR (Area of Responsibility), [with] elevated levels in eastern New York and in the Newport, Vermont area,” Garcia said.
Among the migrants apprehended in the sector between October 1, 2022 and January 31, 2023, 945 were Mexican citizens and 216 were from Haiti or Guatemala, Garcia reported.
U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik (R-New York 21st District) blamed President Joe Biden for the increase in migrants crossing into the U.S. from Canada
“Every state is a border state. Every district is a border district because of Joe Biden’s border crisis,” Stefanik told the local ABC affiliate. “Our taxpayers, brave border police officers and northern border communities should no longer bear the brunt of this crisis.”
Vermont Senator Peter Welch (D-New York) called the wave of migrants to his state “deeply disturbing.”
During the first five months of Fiscal Year 23, Swanton sector officials arrested nearly 3,300 migrants illegally crossing the border from Canada into New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. This represents an 850 percent increase over the same period in FY22, according to Border Patrol reports reviewed by Breitbart Texas.
In addition to the more than 3,300 arrests, another almost 1,200 migrants are known escapees. These are migrants that the Border Patrol knows entered the US but could not be apprehended, the reports show. This represents an increase of more than 950 percent over the same period in FY22.
bob price serves as associate editor and senior news officer for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Houston’s Fox 26 What is your point? Sunday morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX