Police in Akwesasne arrest 13 people believed to have crossed into the U.S. illegally

Police in the Kanien'kehá:ka community of Akwesasne, which straddles Quebec, Ontario and New York state, say they arrested 13 people over the weekend who were attempting to illegally enter the U.S.

The arrests were made in the village of Kana:takon, also known as St. Regis, on the U.S. side of the border, the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service said in a media release on Thursday.

Officers found a family of four walking on the roadway in Kana:takon, the media release said, and later a family of nine, in a private residence.

All were believed to have crossed into the U.S. illegally.

The police turned the families over to Canadian officials and said an investigation is ongoing. 

"The Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service would like to inform the community that human smuggling is a crime and poses serious health and safety risks for not only the individual(s) committing the act, but for the entire community of Akwesasne," the police said. 

In March, nine people died during a suspected human smuggling operation in the area. Eight of them, six adults and two children from a Romanian and an Indian family, were attempting to enter the U.S., according to police.

In July, police located the body of Casey Oakes, a local man who was believed to have been at the helm of a boat that was found capsized near the bodies. 

In May, the federal government announced a $12-million funding boost to address cross-border crime in the community and $849,000 for the police there to buy additional vehicles including an airboat, new firearms and forensic equipment.

However, it appears that not much has changed since that funding boost, according to Marjorie Kaniehtonkie Skidders, editor of the Indian Time Newspaper. 

She said she lives in a beautiful part of the world, but the recent news coming out of Akwesasne has been ugly.

"We're more than that. We're more than a place to smuggle people or narcotics or anything like that," she said.

Skidders said the community had a thriving arts market over the summer, and the local lacrosse team, the Akwesasne Thunder, is making a run for the the Founder's Cup — Canada's Junior B Box Lacrosse National Championship — in British Columbia. 

While good news like that isn't getting picked up by the media, news outlets across Canada are focusing on human smuggling. 

"It's a small number of people that are doing this, but it affects everybody here," she said.

She said irregular immigrants are getting stuck or dumped in Akwesasne, unable to make their next contact and unsure what to do next. 

"It's an international issue in a tiny little place located between Canada and the United States," said Skidders.