In ‘Smuggler,’ Hope Slips Through in Unusual Border Story

Reece Jones doesn’t like that he was proven right. The author and political geography professor has penned four books about the violent reality of borders around the world, with one work focusing on refugees and another revealing the insidious ties between borders, racism, and policy. But it’s another book — his 2022 release Nobody is Protected — where Jones’s title became distressingly accurate.

“That whole book is about the fact that the Border Patrol has this authority to do all of these things deeper and deeper inside the United States, and of course, Alex Pretti was killed by a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis,” Jones says. 

After the deaths of Pretti and Renee Good, Jones wrote a New York Times opinion piece that, he hoped, brought greater awareness to the “vast authority,” the “huge sums of money,” and the “very little oversight” Border Patrol enjoys. He knows there are very few ways to rein in the power of the Department of Homeland Security and its agencies, but he is encouraged by some of the recent moves made by state governments in Illinois and New York, where newly proposed laws give citizens the power to sue federal agents who violate the constitution. 

He is also encouraged by the story at the heart of his latest book.

Smuggler: Drugs, Gangs, and Refugees at America’s Northern Border hits shelves on Oct. 20, and unlike Jones’s other work, the book focuses on one man: Bob Boulé, an eccentric business owner and government collaborator who becomes the titular smuggler. 

Boulé owns the Smuggler’s Inn, a cozy Washington bed and breakfast whose property straddles the Canadian border. He initially cooperates with Border Patrol, passing along tips about suspicious activity near the property. Then a run-in with a refugee named Aras causes Boulé to have a change of heart, and he begins helping asylum seekers cross into Canada — turning his inn’s smuggler theme into something more than a marketing gimmick.

Revealing more details would spoil the fun of the book’s brisk narrative, but if the name “Boulé” sounds familiar, it’s likely because of the Supreme Court Case created by the man’s increasingly fractious relationship with the Border Patrol agents he once helped. 

In 2014, Border Patrol agent Erik Egbert followed a vehicle carrying one of Boulé’s guests onto the property. According to Boulé, Egbert refused to leave when asked; the agent threw him against the vehicle and onto the ground. Boulé filed a complaint, then alleged that Egbert retaliated by drawing the attention of the IRS to his tax returns. 

That intrigued Jones, as did the prospect of writing about the US-Canada border, which serves as a lifeline for asylum seekers while receiving far less media coverage than the US-Mexico border. The northern border’s importance — and the importance of Boulé’s bed and breakfast — is underscored in the first few pages, in a conversation between Boulé and Aras.

Over tea at the Smuggler’s Inn, Aras explains how his Kurdish homeland was divided up between Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq.

“When we ask for our rights, they arrest us or worse,” he tells Boulé. “People disappear. I spend each day wondering if I am next.” 

Then Aras relays how a broker he paid for help with a US visa gave him the name of the Smuggler’s Inn: “They say this is the best place to cross into Canada to apply for political asylum.”

Jones is able to fill his new book with conversations like this thanks to the treasure trove of documents provided by his co-author, Boos. Together, the two men have crafted a story that is at once informative, entertaining, and timely. For Jones, working on Smuggler affirmed something he’d noticed in his previous work: “You can have your arguments about policy, and you should make those, but they hit so much better if you can make them through a story.”

To him, the book is something of a cautionary tale that reveals the consequences of weak or nonexistent legal protections. But in the end, it’s also a character study.

“Hearing a story like this and watching someone having gone through this change in perspective was really powerful to me,” Jones adds. “It tells me that people can change their mind, that we’re not as fixed in our positions as we think we are. Presented with new information and particularly face-to-face, I think it can change people.”

In an interview about his new book, Jones reflected on how it is now people who are providing the biggest, most consequential pushback against the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. In some cases, they’re joined by the states. 

The legislatures in Illinois and New York have recently passed laws inspired by Bivens, though both laws face varying levels of federal pushback. Jones points out that this is a reversal of historic precedent: It was typically the federal government, via forces like the National Guard, intervening in the states to quell “bad local actors” and enforce laws like desegregation. 

“We are certainly seeing the largest divergence between the state and the federal level that there’s really ever been,” Jones says. 

Then there’s the final reason Smuggler has become even timelier than its authors might have imagined: Much like the relationship between some US states and the federal government, the ties between the US and Canada have recently frayed.

“In Trump’s second administration, he’s doing all this 51st state talk [about Canada], and he’s called the border between the US and Canada an imaginary line that only exists on a map,” Jones says. “And it’s like, ‘Yeah, you’re so close.’”