SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Under this Trump administration, the Justice Department has pushed out or fired dozens of career prosecutors and FBI agents. It's rescinded gun regulations, overhauled policies and shuttered task forces. One thing that has survived the turmoil is Joint Task Force Alpha, an effort launched during the Biden administration to crack down on human smuggling networks. NPR's Ryan Lucas reports.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Joint Task Force Alpha was launched in the summer of 2021 by the Biden Justice Department to go after the leaders, organizers and facilitators of human smuggling along the southern border. After President Trump returned to office, the Justice Department doubled down on the effort last September when then-Attorney General Pam Bondi made this announcement.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAM BONDI: We are now expanding Joint Task Force Alpha. The task force will now cover our northern border in Canada, of course, and all of our maritime borders.
LUCAS: The decision fit with the Trump administration's broader immigration crackdown.
TYSEN DUVA: It fits within the Take Back America approach, which is targeting the cartels and transnational criminal organizations.
LUCAS: Assistant Attorney General Tysen Duva leads the Justice Department's Criminal Division, which oversees the task force.
DUVA: These groups don't just sell drugs. They do anything that makes money, and they will do anything that makes money off the back of other human beings.
LUCAS: That includes smuggling and trafficking people into the United States. In an interview with NPR, Duva says, over the past five years, Joint Task Force Alpha has brought charges against more than 400 defendants. One of them was Ofelia Hernandez Salas, who was sentenced last month to 11 years in prison for smuggling hundreds of people from around the world into the U.S. She and her coconspirators also robbed the migrants of their money and cell phones right before sending them across the southern border.
On the northern border, Duva points to a recent case against Timothy Oakes, a dual Canadian American citizen who pleaded guilty last month to human smuggling. The charges against Oakes stem from an incident involving two families, including one from Romania with two small children. On a cold, windy evening in March 2023, they tried to cross the St. Lawrence River from Canada into the U.S. by boat.
DUVA: So at night, coming across the St. Lawrence River, the boat capsizes, and the families die, including the 2- and the 3-year-old. Timothy Oakes' brother was the captain of the boat. He died as well. So just a tragic, tragic incident.
LUCAS: While there's no indication that cartels were involved in the Oakes case, Duva says what he calls investigative instincts indicate that they are involved in human smuggling on the northern border. There are flights to Montreal from Mexico and elsewhere, he says, and he argues that organized criminal groups are working to smuggle people via that route, as well.
DUVA: What we're working on is to pin that down. I think that's the next step on the northern border - of exactly who is doing this, who's more prevalent than others?
LUCAS: As Joint Task Force Alpha pursues more cases on the northern border, Duva says, investigators will be mapping out those networks and how they work. Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
