A Brooklyn, New York man faces up to five years in prison

A Brooklyn, New York man faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to smuggling nine unauthorized immigrants across the Canadian border in June 2023.  On Wednesday at the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire, Abraham Hernandez, 27, pleaded guilty to three counts of smuggling and harboring aliens. He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 19. According to court documents, on the night of June 13 Hernandez was stopped by a Border Patrol agent in Pittsburg while transporting the nine illegal immigrants. In the affidavit supporting the criminal complaint, John Marquissee, a U.S. Border Patrol agent and intelligence officer at the Beecher Falls Station in Canaan, Vt., said the Border Patrol’s Swanton Sector Dispatch advised of cross-border illicit activity on the night of June 13, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police specifically observed ten people with backpacks walking south from Canada toward Halls Stream Road in Pittsburg. But Border Patrol agents assigned to the Beecher Falls Station had become aware that suspected illegal aliens had used the Halls Stream Road area to cross into the United States on at least two nighttime occasions in recent weeks.  At about 10:37 p.m. on June 13, a citizen who lives along Halls Stream Road contacted Border Patrol about a white Honda SUV parked in his driveway an accelerated at a high rate of speed after he turned on his porch light, he said. A border patrol agent had previously seen the vehicle about an hour earlier and had observed the SUV traveling at a high rate of speed and “leaning to one side.” The agent made a motor vehicle stop at Route 3 and Bishop Brook Road. Eight people were Mexican nationals and one from Guatemala, and none had proper immigration documents to be in or remain in the United States.