Border Patrol catches 8 sneaking across border

SPOKANE -- The Border Patrol has intercepted more people in the past two months trying to sneak into the United States at a remote crossing northwest of Spokane than in all of the previous 12 months.

Agents have intercepted 11 people crossing into the U.S. near the Danville crossing since the government's new fiscal year started Oct. 1, the Border Patrol said. That's one more than they captured in all of the past fiscal year.

Eight of the people were a group of South Koreans intercepted late last week after they crossed the border, said Steve Garrett, an assistant Border Patrol supervisor in Spokane.

"It's an ongoing criminal smuggling organization," Garrett said. The organization brings South Koreans legally into Canada and then arranges to sneak them across the border, he said.

Garrett acknowledged that the number of people caught is still relatively small, but the agency is worried the number being smuggled will increase.

After the 9/11 attacks, U.S. border security was tightened, with more agents assigned at busy crossings west of the Cascade Range, near Blaine.

Garrett said that has smugglers moving east, looking for easier places to cross into the country.

In last week's bust, Border Patrol agents were tipped by a local farmer. They intercepted the eight South Koreans, two of them children, walking through a field in the United States.

The South Koreans were allegedly being led by Harry Edward John Harrison, a Canadian citizen, who was arrested on federal smuggling charges. He is in jail in Spokane after an initial appearance Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno.

The South Koreans acknowledged that they had illegally entered the United States and told Border Patrol agents they had been driven from Vancouver to a site north of Danville, in Canada.

They probably will be deported.