A California woman is facing up to 10 years in prison for conspiring to smuggle her British husband through the Rooseville Border Crossing near Cranbrook.
Fifty-three year-old Tracy Routh Lautenslager has plead guilty to conspiracy to bring aliens into the United States and faces a 10-year prison sentence, $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.
On April 1, 2025, a vehicle operated by the defendant entered the United States through the Roosville, Montana Port of Entry before heading to the Swisher Lake area.
The U.S. Border Patrol was alerted to a lone male walking across the international boundary line from Canada to the United States.
Border Patrol was unable to locate him and believed he returned to Canada.
He was soon apprehended by the RCMP and escorted to the border.
Around the same time, Lautenslager returned to Canada to look for her husband and was denied entry on suspicion of smuggling.
She was interview by law enforcement and admitted she and her husband planned to have him circumvent the immigration process due to his legal status.
The plan was to drop her husband off at a location on the Canadian side of the border, drive into the United States and then pick him up.
Her phone was seized and text messages discussing the plan were discovered.
She will be sentenced in a hearing on Jan. 6, 2026.
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