2 Americans face jail time for smuggling in illegal immigrants from Canada

2 Americans face jail time for smuggling in illegal immigrants from Canada

RUTLAND, Vt. (AP) - Two New York City men nabbed while smuggling 21 illegal aliens into Vermont from Canada last summer are facing time behind bars.

Robert Clark, 56, and Wilfred Nieves, 44, pleaded guilty to charges stemming from their arrests by Border Patrol agents in Derby Line, just south of the Canadian border.

The men were driving two vans, Clark's loaded with 11 illegal aliens and Nieves' with 10, authorities said.

They said the immigrants, from Afghanistan, Guyana, India, Mexico and Pakistan, lacked the documents they needed to be in the country.

At Wednesday's sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Garvan Murtha ordered Clark to serve three years in prison, followed by two years of supervised release. Nieves, whom the judge described as less involved than Clark, got two months of incarceration, two months of house arrest and two years of supervised release.

Clark apologized to the judge at the hearing. His lawyer told Murtha that Clark, who served with the U.S. military in Vietnam, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"It's sad in some respect," the judge told Clark. "You served your country well and now this."

Nieves said he was recruited by Clark, and didn't know he would be transporting illegal aliens until he was in Canada and believed he couldn't back out.

"I love my country and would never do something like that to my country," Nieves said. "I didn't even know it was going on. I'm so sorry that it happened."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Woodcock, who prosecuted the case, wrote in court papers that the illegal aliens paid a Canadian smuggler up to US$10,000 each for the trip across the border.

"Because they were caught, the aliens lost all of their money to those who sought to exploit them north of the United States border," Woodcock wrote.