Jorge Barrera

Reporter

Jorge Barrera is a Caracas-born journalist who has worked across the country and internationally. He works for CBC's investigative unit based out of Ottawa. Follow him on Twitter @JorgeBarrera or email him [email protected].

Latest from Jorge Barrera

Agnes Benn's death and the hidden history of Birtle residential school's predatory principal

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard very little about Agnes Benn, a teen girl who died near a Manitoba residential school in 1930, and the multiple sex abuse charges faced by the school's principal, Henry Currie.

Human smugglers trafficked in Canadian passports, posed security threat, RCMP records allege

A “sophisticated” human smuggling organization run from Montreal posed a threat to national security through its connections to an international network that trafficked in forged Canadian passports, according to allegations in files obtained by CBC News from an RCMP-led investigation.

U.S. guilty plea for woman caught on video with Romanian-Canadian family who died on smuggling run

A woman captured on the parking lot camera of a Super 8 motel in Cornwall, Ont., picking up a Romanian-Canadian family days before their deaths on a human smuggling run pleaded guilty Thursday before a U.S. Federal Court to five counts of alien smuggling. 

Quebec judge rules 2 should face U.S. extradition in human smuggling river deaths

A Quebec Superior Court judge ruled two people from Akwesasne should face extradition to the U.S., where they face charges related to a human smuggling run across the St. Lawrence River that ended in the drowning deaths of nine people on March 29, 2023.
CBC Investigates

Human smugglers sent 2 families to their deaths as RCMP closed in, court records show

The Romanian and Indian families who drowned during a human smuggling run into the U.S. in 2023 were transported close to the Canadian-U.S. border by an organized crime network the RCMP was already building a case against. Court documents outline the complexities of the network.

Human smuggling persists along Canada-U.S. border, despite crackdown

Human smuggling networks continue to operate along Quebec's border with Vermont and New York state despite winter conditions and increased law enforcement, according to U.S. Federal Court records about two incidents over the past weekend.

U.S. Border Patrol agent killed in Vermont near Canada-U.S. border, say authorities

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was shot and killed in Vermont on Monday while performing their duties near the Canada-U.S. border, according to U.S. federal and state authorities. 

Indigenous journalism legacy ends in Akwesasne with Indian Time closing

Born in 1983 from community demands in the wake of internal troubles, Akwesasne's Indian Time newspaper published its final edition Thursday as tensions returned to this Indigenous territory that is severed by the Canada-U.S. border. 

2 people hospitalized following search for migrants in First Nations territory

At least two people have been found suffering from hypothermia following a search for suspected migrants crossing through a First Nations territory which straddles the both the Canada-U.S. and Ontario-Quebec borders, according to police.
CBC Investigates

Sixteen caught crossing illegally into U.S. from Quebec in days before Trump tariff threat

On a late Saturday afternoon, two days before U.S. president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs on Canadian goods over migrants and fentanyl, the RCMP alerted U.S. Border Patrol about a group of people crossing illegally from Quebec into an area near Chateaugay, N.Y.