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NY woman pleads guilty to smuggling Indian across U.S.-Canada border
She is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 3 and faces a statutory minimum penalty of five years in prison.
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Staff Reporter - Wed, 12, Aug 2026
- 00:13 EDT
- 20
DOJ / DOJ
A New York woman on Aug. 11 pleaded guilty to her role in an international scheme to smuggle migrants, primarily from India, across the U.S.-Canadian border.
According to court documents, Stacey Taylor, 43, of Plattsburgh, New York, was involved in a failed human smuggling event in January 2025 involving aliens from India brought illegally into the United States, the Justice Department said in a statement.
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U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped the defendant's vehicle near Churubusco, New York, in the early morning hours of Jan. 20, 2025, and discovered four men inside her vehicle. Agents then determined the four men, three from India and one from Canada, were illegal aliens and had just crossed the U.S.-
Canadian border illegally, without inspection, in the freezing cold.
When law enforcement later examined the defendant's cellphone, they learned that Taylor had received coordinates for the aliens' location and instructions for picking them up.
The four aliens illegally entered the United States by foot through a wooded area and got into Taylor's waiting vehicle, and she then drove them away from the border and further into the interior of the United States.
After law enforcement stopped her vehicle, Taylor admitted that she picked up the four aliens and expected to receive payment for doing so.
Additional review of Taylor's phone revealed text messages that indicated that she had been involved in multiple other human smuggling events in the days prior. Following her January 2025 arrest, she was subsequently stopped in a suspected alien smuggling venture in August 2025 and was again implicated in alien smuggling in September 2025, the statement said.
Taylor pleaded guilty to conspiracy to engage in alien smuggling and four counts of alien smuggling for profit. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 3 and faces a statutory minimum penalty of five years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
The investigation and indictment were supported and prosecuted by Joint Task Force Alpha (JTFA), the department's lead effort in combating high-impact human smuggling and trafficking committed by cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs).
According to the Justice Department, JTFA's efforts have so far resulted in more than 477 domestic and international arrests, over 431 U.S. convictions and more than 370 significant prison sentences, along with substantial asset forfeitures.
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