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The Swanton Sector Border Patrol arrested Yasser Rivera-Reyes, a 42-year-old Cuban citizen with ties to Miami, on April 24 after he illegally crossed the border from Canada into Derby, Vermont, despite having an active deportation order since 2017.
The case was announced this Tuesday by Chief Agent Robert Garcia, who confirmed that the Federal Prosecutor's Office for the District of Vermont has already secured a formal charge for illegal re-entry after deportation.
According to the federal court records, agents received alerts around 10 PM about a possible illegal crossing in the area of a bike path in Derby, Vermont.
Upon responding to the alert, the agents found Rivera-Reyes wearing clothing and carrying a backpack similar to the images captured by cameras near the border.
A federal grand jury formalized the indictment on May 7, and Rivera-Reyes pleaded not guilty before Federal Magistrate Kevin J. Doyle, who ordered his pretrial detention.
Rivera-Reyes' deportation order dates back to 2017, when he was an inmate in the federal prison system of the United States, indicating that he was deported after serving time for a previous federal offense.
Among his belongings, the agents found evidence that he had established residency in Canada, such as a Quebec driver's license issued in September 2025, a debit card from a Canadian bank, a membership certificate from a Canadian union, and receipts from April 2026 from a business in Charlemagne, Quebec.
The case is unusual because the accused had apparently built a documented life in the province of Quebec before attempting to illegally cross back into U.S. territory.
The prosecutor in the case is the federal prosecutor's special assistant Craig Nolan, and Rivera-Reyes is represented by the Federal Public Defender's Office.
If found guilty, he faces up to two years in federal prison.
The case is part of the Operation Recover America, a national initiative by the Department of Justice launched in March 2025 to combat illegal immigration, dismantle cartels and transnational criminal organizations, and protect communities from violent crime.
The Swanton Sector, which encompasses Vermont, New Hampshire, and part of eastern New York with 295 miles of Canadian border, has historically been the most active sector along the northern border.
Derby Line, where the arrest took place, is an area with porous geography that shares urban space with Stanstead, Quebec, which complicates border monitoring.
Cubans represent a smaller but steady flow at that border. The Customs and Border Protection Office recorded 47 Cubans in February 2024 and 31 in May of the same year, numbers that dropped to 10 in March 2025 and 15 in July 2025.
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