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An upcoming sentencing hearing for a B.C. man linked to an elaborate operation that exploited an international park to smuggle migrants into Canada is shaping up to be a contentious one.

A provincial court judge on Thursday heard that five days may be needed to hear arguments, being raised by the defence, over the constitutionality of a mandatory minimum sentence attached to the smuggling offences.

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Michael Kong, 62, who last month pleaded guilty to four counts of human smuggling, pleaded guilty to one additional count Thursday, avoiding a trial that had been scheduled for next week.

No agreed statement of facts — a summary of the facts that Kong is admitting to — has yet been filed with the court. But search warrant documents previously obtained by the National Post showed Kong was the subject of a years-long investigation by the Canada Border Services Agency into an operation that saw Chinese nationals fly to the U.S. on valid travel visas and then walk across the border into Canada via Peace Arch Park — a park that straddles the boundary between Surrey, B.C., and Blaine, Wash., and is located next to a major port of entry.