An American man has been deported and banned from Canada after he was caught trying to smuggle a family from Mexico across the Osoyoos border for $1,500.
A hearing for Andres Alberto Beckett was held by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) on April 26, 2023, but details surrounding the case were only recently made available.
According to the transcripts, Beckett was deemed inadmissible to Canada for participating in an organized crime and deported for his part in the smuggling scheme.
Beckett was to provide assistance on the final leg of the family’s journey in exchange for $1,500, helping them across the Canadian border in an area in the U.S. that he was familiar with based on experience hunting and capturing wild horses in the region.
The IRB’s Tribunal Member Kareitha Osborne found that even if Beckett was not a full-fledged member of the people-smuggling operation, he knew multiple people were involved, which made what he was doing organized criminality.
The transcript lists an individual named Patty and one named Rooster as part of the main operation, with Rooster being the one to contract Beckett for his part in the scheme.
“And based on the evidence that is before me, there are reasonable grounds to believe that you, Mr. Beckett, had knowledge of the criminal aim of the organization,” reads the transcript. “You knew that facilitating this family across the border was illegal and it seems as though that was the main aim and purpose of this group and that organization.”
Getting the family over the border at Osoyoos was apparently the group’s second option after a smuggler in Eastern Canada fell through.
The family had come into Canada in Ontario, before being flown into Kelowna Airport. On April 4, 2023, Beckett was to pick the family up, head to a restaurant near the border, and then cross without going through customs.
“The argument that you were merely trying to help this family and that the money was just a bonus is not reasonable under the circumstances,” reads the transcript. “Especially given the amount of coordination that it took to be recruited, have somebody drive you into Canada through a port of entry, to organize the meet up at the motel, to find a location in which your sister can drop you off, and then organizing for a pickup prior to crossing the border, but a pickup for when you are actually on the United States soil.”
While crossing, Beckett ended up abandoning the family in the snow, as he ran from police.
The police then followed Beckett’s tracks back to where the family had been left behind.
“Within that family of Mexican nationals, there was an infant and that is particularly distressing, given the stories of two other family fatalities crossing and in similar circumstances,” Osborne said.
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According to court records, Beckett is also facing criminal charges in Okanogan County Superior Court. No charges were found related to the human trafficking he was involved in.
The two incidents, one in February of 2023 and the other in September have him facing a long list of felony charges including robbery in the first degree, assault in the second degree, harassment and threats to kill in the second degree, intention to commit a felony, possession of a stolen firearm and attempting to elude a police vehicle.
He also faces several misdemeanor charges in the September case, including obstructing a law enforcement officer, tampering with physical evidence, resisting arrest and driving while his licence is suspended or revoked.
An article on Beckett in the magazine the Atavist explained that he had grown up in Omak and Wenatchee, and that he had once been offered to move $25,000 worth of cocaine across the border after years dealing drugs in high school.
Having been deemed inadmissible to Canada, Beckett would need to go before a Federal Court with an application at a later date to have the Tribunal’s decision reviewed.