This Feb. 10, 2020, photo shows the headquarters of the U.S. border patrol's Swanton Sector in Swanton, Vt. Vermont State Police are investigating after a man collapsed and died shortly after crossing the border into the United States from Quebec on foot last week. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Wilson Ring
MONTREAL – Vermont State Police are investigating after a man collapsed and died shortly after crossing the border into the United States from Quebec on foot last week.
They say U.S. border patrol agents spotted Jose Leos Cervantes and two other people crossing the border into Holland, Vt., at about 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 19.
Police say in a news release that Leos Cervantes collapsed when encountered by the agents and that the other two men ran back toward Canada.
The 45-year-old from Aguascalientes, Mexico, was taken to hospital, and his death is not considered suspicious.
This is the second time this winter a person has died crossing the border – a 44-year-old man was found frozen to death in early January in a wooded area near St-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., where police said he was trying to enter the United States.
A 31-year-old Ecuadorian woman from Connecticut was charged last week with unlawfully attempting to transport three individuals within the United States following Leos Cervantes’s death.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 28, 2023.
