Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Trucker's brief detour into Canada leads to 3 weeks in federal custody
https://vtdigger.org/2026/04/02/truckers-brief-detour-into-canada-leads-to-3-weeks-in-federal-custody/Auditi Guha
A U.S. judge in Vermont ordered the man's immediate release given the nature of the constitutional violations in this case.
Arnaldo Gregorio Alay Aguilar was following his navigation system while delivering a truckload of logs to New York and ended up at Vermont's Highgate Springs border crossing into Canada.
Canadian officers would not let him back up the truck for safety reasons, his lawyers say. So he was forced to cross through, make a U-turn and report to a border official on the U.S. side.
That detour led to the 40-year-old trucker being held in federal custody for three weeks. But the government did not make a case for why, according to court documents.
The situation has similarities to a pattern that emerged in recent immigration operations in Burlington and South Burlington, where government lawyers failed to provide evidence when seeking to hold people picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
. . .
Federal officials "failed to provide Petitioner with a charging document or to articulate a clear or legally sufficient basis for his detention," his lawyers stated in court filings.
. . .
Canadian officers would not let him back up the truck for safety reasons, his lawyers say. So he was forced to cross through, make a U-turn and report to a border official on the U.S. side.
That detour led to the 40-year-old trucker being held in federal custody for three weeks. But the government did not make a case for why, according to court documents.
The situation has similarities to a pattern that emerged in recent immigration operations in Burlington and South Burlington, where government lawyers failed to provide evidence when seeking to hold people picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
. . .
Federal officials "failed to provide Petitioner with a charging document or to articulate a clear or legally sufficient basis for his detention," his lawyers stated in court filings.
. . .
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
