RCMP have charged Montreal men with trying to smuggle people across the US border

RCMP have charged two Montreal men with trying to smuggle people across the border into the United States last year.

Marcos Chagolla Rojas, 39, and Lino Guerrero Martinez, 29, have been charged with conspiracy to commit a crime in the United States, police said.

An RCMP news release says the two men were arrested Aug. 3 with a group of 11 people in East Pinnacle, near the border of Quebec's eastern townships.

They will appear in court in Granby, Que., on Feb. 19, police said.

The news comes as the United States Border Patrol reports an increase in the number of people trying to cross the border illegally from Canada.

The agency recently announced that agents in the Swanton Sector, which patrols Vermont, New Hampshire and northeastern New York, arrested more than 3,100 people from 55 countries between October and early February.