BLAINE, Wash. — The owner of Blaine’s Smuggler’s Inn will face trial in BC over charges he helped smuggle people into Canada.
The Abbotsford News reports that Robert Boule will be tried on 21 charges for helping smuggle people across the border from 2016 to 2019.
He originally faced 30 charges but challenged the constitutionality of the Canadian immigration act.
A judge threw out 9 of the charges last month and he’ll face the others in trial next August.
Canada’s Global News reports Boule is accused of taking money from immigrants who whom he brought to his inn and instructing them on how to enter the country.
The Smuggler’s Inn sits on the U.S. side of the unfenced border along Zero Avenue between Blaine and Surrey B.C.