Golden Road between US and Canada (Photo: Chronicle 5 WCVB)
Four British nationals were arrested by the US Border Patrol after they entered the US in a remote part of Maine from Canada. They claimed to be hikers and told the police they were not aware that they entered the US. The incident took place on April 3, and now all of them have been charged with one count each of Entry without Inspection, a misdemeanor offense that carries a maximum sentence of six months in federal prison and a $5,000 fine. All four have pleaded not guilty.The names of the four British nationals triggered a major online debate as none of Ali Mohammed Ali Abdullah, Hameed Mohammed Nagi, Ibrahim Ayyub Khan and Mohammed Sultan Saleh is originally British. “Britain really needs to sort this issue out because the fact that these guys have British passports is an absolute catastrophe for national security in the West,” commentator Drew Pavlou wrote.
GoPro footage shows them celebrating as they entered US
Contrary to their claims that they were just hikers and did not understand that they were on US soil, they were caught on GoPro footage celebrating the moment they stepped on American soil. “I can confirm you are now on US soil,” Saleh said, as recorded in the footage.“I’m on US soil?” Abdullah asked in disbelief, to which Saleh showed him his phone screen with GPS coordinates. “Now we are in the US,” Saleh said. “We just made it baby.” How were they arrested?Two maple sugar workers heading into Canada saw these four men, whom they described as Middle Eatsern walking south on the so-called Golden Road. This Golden Road is a 96-mile unpaved road in Maine that stretches to the Quebec border. The workers found them suspicious and alerted a CBP officer.Later, it was found out that those four men were supposed to be picked up by two men who were also spotted on the Golden Road. The CBP officers followed the leads and found all of them — the four men who claimed to be British nationals and the two men who were supposed to pick them up – who claimed to be US citizens. The four men told the agents that they did not realize they entered the US, before agents found the damning GoPro footage as well as searches Saleh allegedly made that day, including ‘bangor from my location,’ ‘boston from bangor,’ ‘new york from Boston.’
