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Two U.S. nationals who admitted they illegally helped two Cuban nationals sneak across the Manitoba border say they were trying to help their friends escape an immigration crackdown in the U.S.
Emanuel Trejo Gonzalez, 29, and Jose Rafael Ramos Cartagena, who is in his 50s, were each sentenced to one year in jail after they pleaded guilty during hearings in Manitoba provincial court in Winnipeg on Jan. 30. With credit for time served, they’ll serve just over 70 more days.
The men were arrested after Canada Border Services Agency officers stopped their car at the border crossing in Emerson, Man.
Crown attorney Matthew Sinclair said during the hearing both men told officers they were crossing into Canada only for a day. He said that during an additional search, the agents found luggage and goods that did not belong to them, including the ID and medication of a Cuban man.
RCMP then notified the border officers they caught two Cuban nationals crossing the border.
A device search found both Trejo Gonzalez and Ramos Cartagena had discussed possible border entry spots and the potential legal consequences of their actions, Sinclair said.
Both men initially faced more severe charges related to human smuggling and trafficking, but those were reduced to charges related to helping a foreign national not to report to foreign services.
No evidence of ‘profit-based operation’: Crown
The one-year sentence is based on a joint recommendation “given the guilty pleas, unsophisticated operation and lack of evidence that this was an ongoing for profit-based operation,” Sinclair said.
Sinclair said the Cuban nationals would have been inadmissible to Canada due to “serious criminality.” One man had been convicted for trafficking heroin. The other had been convicted for aggravated assault and trafficking marijuana and hash in the U.S.
Trejo Gonzalez and Ramos Cartagena also have a history of convictions south of the border.
In 1998, Ramos Cartagena was convicted of several charges for robbing an armoured-car depot of $5 million US in San Juan, Puerto Rico, according to U.S. court documents.
He left a prison in Wisconsin in 2022 under supervised release. A judge in Puerto Rico granted early termination of that order in late 2024.
Trejo Gonzalez was also granted early release from a Wisconsin prison in May 2025. Records show he was convicted for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, though documents related to that are sealed.
‘Not the right way’ to help: judge
Danny Gunn, Trejo Gonzalez’s lawyer, said his client works as a welder and at a family restaurant. Gunn said Trejo Gonzalez was just trying to help the two Cuban men leave the U.S. amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Gunn said they got the idea after state police stopped Trejo Gonzalez and one of the Cubans as they were going camping in North Dakota.
“Back in the late spring and early summer [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] had moved into Minnesota. Persons who were there within the community were very concerned about the manner which ICE agents were conducting themselves at the time,” Gunn said.
He said Trejo Gonzalez has family in Minnesota.
The lawyer said one of the Cuban men had been undergoing cancer treatment, but stopped because of concerns about being an illegal immigrant to the U.S.
The border crossing “was a dumb idea, but it certainly wasn’t sort of the kind of profit-motivated smuggling that we sometimes see, where you have individuals who are transported cross-borders,” Gunn said.
Trejo Gonzalez said in court he didn’t understand the nature of what he was doing.
“I just tried to help. That’s all I can say,” he told Judge Denis Guénette. “I just apologize to your country for not understanding what I was doing.”
Guénette said it’s a hard lesson to learn.
“Following the news, I can understand how there may be a temptation of trying to help, but that is not the right way to do it,” he said.
Lawyer R. Dule Vicovac, who represented Ramos Cartagena, said that with the current situation in the U.S., he’s seeing a significant increase in people trying to illegally cross the border and more applications for refugee status.
Court heard the Cuban nationals sought asylum in Canada. They were sent back to the U.S. in July.
Under the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the U.S., asylum seekers must claim refugee status in the first safe country they arrive in.