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When an ordinary man is thrust into the dangerous world of smuggling at America’s northern border, he is forced to risk his own freedom to protect refugees from violent immigration policing.

Soon after conservative businessman Bob Boulé opens the Smuggler’s Inn, a quirky bed and breakfast in Blaine, Washington directly on the US-Canada border, refugees, drug traffickers, and ICE agents all trust him with their secrets. The refugees tell Bob heartbreaking stories of persecution and death. The drug traffickers and ICE agents try to recruit Bob to their side in the dangerous game of smuggling at the border. As Bob’s work at the Smuggler’s Inn spirals, he is forced to make a series of risky decisions that draw him deeper and deeper into the murky border underworld, putting his own freedom at risk. His secret life comes crashing down after a violent confrontation with a Border Patrol agent in his driveway, leading him to question his core beliefs about right and wrong as he finds his true purpose in life. In this gripping exposé, Border expert Reece Jones and immigration lawyer Greg Boos reveal the hidden world of America’s northern border and provide readers with urgent insights into immigration and border policing throughout the United States.

From the Taliban-controlled countryside of Afghanistan to the infamous La Joya prison in Panama, the stories featured in Smuggler converge in the misty forests of the Pacific Northwest in the borderlands between Seattle and Vancouver. There are car chases, drug deals between the Hells Angels and the Sinaloa cartel, and over a thousand people who slip quietly across the border to safety in Canada in the dead of night. After the violent confrontation with the Border Patrol agent, Bob’s complaint goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, whose landmark decision in Egbert v. Boule paves the way for the apparent impunity of ICE agents on American streets in the second presidency of Donald Trump.

Featuring personal interviews, in-depth research, and a propulsive narrative, Smuggler is the untold true story of how a quaint bed and breakfast on the northern border became the epicenter of debates about refugee protections and violent immigration policing inside the United States.

Reece Jones is a writer and a of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. Reece was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Bangladesh before studying for his MS and PhD in Geography from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. 

Reece's work has appeared in , , , and many other outlets. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal , a , and a lifetime of the American Association of Geographers.