American man sentenced to prison for smuggle attempt in Emerson

An American who was arrested at the Emerson port of entry last February after he helped a Pakistani man illegally walk into Manitoba has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years behind bars.

The 33-year-old New Yorker, Sahil Aziz, pleaded guilty Wednesday to violating the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, as well as a smuggling charge under the Customs Act, in front of provincial court Judge Kusham Sharma.

The Pakistani man evaded police after successfully walking into Manitoba. He wasn’t caught until months later in Alberta.

Aziz’s defence lawyer, Jesse Blackman, told court the incident wasn’t a well-planned out smuggling operation, but rather, an unsophisticated attempt to help.

“This individual… basically came to him and probably other people, crying, begging to be taken out of the United States — he feared (President) Donald Trump, he feared (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), he feared being deported back to Pakistan… a place he had little connection to at that point,” said Blackman.

“And this fear motivated Mr. Aziz to participate and assist him. It may have been good intentions, but obviously, that’s not the standard on these immigration and customs acts.”

Sharma told Aziz there are legal ways to come to Canada and those methods must be applied.

“And you have to let people deal with their own stuff. You know that old saying? The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” said Sharma of Aziz’s decision to help the man flee.

Crown and defence lawyers jointly recommended the sentence.

Aziz, who has been locked up in Headingley jail awaiting trial, is to serve about 13 months, then be deported back to the U.S.

Federal Crown prosecutor Matt Sinclair outlined the facts of the case prior to the sentencing.

Aziz arrived to the Emerson port of entry just after 1 a.m. on Feb. 7, 2025, alone in a vehicle, and told Canadian Border Services Agency agents he wanted to come to Canada for four days to attend a birthday party in Calgary and to later pick up a person in Toronto, the prosecutor said.

“You know that old saying? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

But Aziz gave the border officers contradictory statements about who owned the vehicle and the agents soon found he was in possession of a man’s Pakistani passport and a Brazilian identity document.

Further examination led agents to find two traffic tickets issued by North Dakota state troopers the day before. Canadian border agents sent Aziz for a secondary examination and he could be heard having a conversation on speakerphone in the vehicle.

“The (officers) noticed the sound of crunching snow… during this phone call,” said Sinclair, suggesting the person on the other end was walking outdoors.

The Canadian officials soon learned two people had been in the vehicle at the time it was stopped by the Americans the day before. The name of the second individual stopped in the U.S. matched the name on the identity documents in the vehicle, said Sinclair.

Sinclair said agents quickly called in the RCMP’s border team to search for the Pakistani man, who they deduced had walked into Manitoba.

Mounties found security footage from Emerson’s Maple Leaf Motel, which is just metres from the border, that showed a man dressed in similar clothing walking through the parking lot in the early morning hours of Feb. 7, before disappearing into the night.

The man wasn’t found until he applied for immigration status in Calgary in July, said Sinclair. His claim was rejected and he was deported from Canada.

Border agents also found text messages between Aziz and his fiancée discussing the plan to smuggle the Pakistani man into Canada.

“All in all, it was clear that this was a premeditated human smuggling event, conscious that… for it to work, (the Pakistani man) would have to avoid CBSA detection,” said Sinclair.

“It was clear that this was a premeditated human smuggling event.”

Agents also found credit card data belonging to hundreds of other people on Aziz’s cellphone that he appears to have fraudulently used to make purchases, which led to the smuggling charge.

Sinclair said Aziz wrongfully prevented the border agency from doing its job, while illegally smuggling immigrants impacts taxpayer-paid resources.

“Those who criminally deceive our governments create enormous expense for Canadians and their federal and provincial governments, and make it more difficult for legitimate immigrants to seek to enter Canada,” said Sinclair.

Aziz, who’s of Iraqi descent, is concerned for his family in the Middle East amid the U.S. and Israel’s war on Iran, Blackman said.

Aziz apologized to the court and asked if the judge could let him out sooner so he could return to the U.S. to assist his family, but she declined after explaining sentencing law to the smuggler.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca