Crossing the Southern border in January is one thing. Crossing the Northern border in January is a different story altogether. I checked the records from the National Weather Service office in Northeast Montana, and the low temperature Tuesday morning in Plentywood, Montana was 2 degrees above zero. And that was without the wind chill.

Tuesday morning is when US Border Patrol agents near Plentywood, Montana arrested Kevin Johnston, a Canadian man who had crossed the border on foot.

He was lost. He sounded disoriented and confused. That's how his friends describe the phone calls they received from Johnston, who they say was trying to get to the US border and seek political asylum.

Several news outlets in Canada had reported the news on Tuesday afternoon that a Canadian man was arrested by US Border Patrol after crossing the Northern border on foot into Montana.

Wednesday morning I had been reporting the story, along with any new information throughout the morning as I received it. That's when I received phone calls from two friends of Johnston's- April in Kansas City, Missouri and Pastor Artur Pawlowski, the prominent street pastor from Calgary, Canada who has been defying lockdown orders in Canada in order to continue holding church services. (I verified the callers connections through a trusted source)

Here's the full audio with both of the calls:

Here's part of what Pastor Pawlowski had to say as he called in to our statewide radio show, Montana Talks with Aaron Flint.

Pastor Pawlowski: I have been arrested a dozen times, and I now have over 40 COVID tickets as we speak. And I was just arrested on the first of January, SWAT style in the middle of the highway, highly dangerous arrest again and I'm facing multiple charges again, for the same offense. My offenses are inciting people to come to church, officiating a church service and participating in illegal gathering, which is a church service. So I have been fighting this from the very beginning, and I refuse to shut down the church and I refuse to do what I do for 20 years, which is feeding the homeless people on the streets of Calgary especially now during this difficult times. They need us more than ever.

Pastor Pawlowski says he has been pastoring Kevin Johnston, the former mayoral candidate in Calgary who was arrested in Montana after apparently getting lost and crossing the Northern border.

Pastor Pawlowski: I did my best to counsel him. And I've told him to stay in Canada and fight alongside people like us. The system, however, the system is so corrupted. He just called me from jail. He is deported. Within five hours he was deported to Saskatchewan. He is in police custody in Saskatchewan in Canada already. He has a fatwa on his head by political Muslims in Ontario. And- people that are very dangerous. He has been attacked multiple times, threatened multiple times that he's going to be murdered. And he was so desperate when the last time I saw him he was shaken. He was desperate. He says, I'm afraid I'm going to die. They're going to murder me- I have to run, I have to run

 

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