The invasion of America continues apace from coast to coast and border to border.

Another riotous belly laugh about how cool it is to break the law when you feel like it.

Lancaster New Era: Local refugee advocate charged

A refugee advocate who works out of Lancaster has been arrested at the Canadian border and charged with immigrant trafficking.

Janet Hinshaw-Thomas, 65, of Chester, is the founder and director of Prime — Ecumenical Commitment to Refugees, which has an office in St. Andrew United Church of Christ in Lancaster and another office in Lansdowne.

She was arrested Sept. 26 at a border station at Lacolle in Quebec, while escorting 12 Haitian people across the border. She was held overnight in jail and released on $5,000 bail, she said today.

Her charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

"It's very frightening, to be honest," Hinshaw-Thomas said today. "I do not relish spending my life in a Canadian jail."

Oooooooooooh! A Canadian jail!

Canada recently has faced a surge of immigrants, many from Haiti, traveling to border stations and seeking asylum, Hinshaw-Thomas said.

Haitians are very afraid of being deported to their country, because of unsafe conditions there, she said. If they cannot obtain legal status in the United States, they often turn to Canada for asylum, she said.

Hinshaw-Thomas said her group has made many trips to the Canadian border.

She said she e-mailed border officials five days before the Sept. 26 trip, notifying them she would be bringing the group of Haitians, which included five adults and seven children. Some of the people had been living in New Jersey, she said.

She told officials she was from a non-profit assistance group.

"There had been a lot of grumbling. They suspected that because we do this so regularly that we were earning money," which is illegal, she said.

That day, a criminal investigator at the border accused her of taking money.

She said Prime does charge a fee for taking families across the border, but it is for traveling expenses. Often, the agency loses money on the trips, she said.

Canada Border Services Agency spokesman Eric Paradis said the charges have nothing to do with whether Hinshaw-Thomas was profiting from helping the refugees, according to a story in The Catholic Register, a Canadian newspaper.

He said, "We had a person bringing in people who were there that did not have the proper documentation to enter Canada. This is not legal.