Indian family freezes to death while trying to slip into US from Canada, two accused await trial

An Indian family of four froze to death while attempting to slip into the United States from Canada in January 2022, as the temperature dropped to minus 36 Fahrenheit (minus 38 Celsius) in the country. 

The Gujarati family included Jagdish Patel, his wife Vaishaliben, and their two young children. 

The three-year-old, Dharmik Patel, Jagdish’s son, was found frozen in the arms of his father, wrapped in a blanket. 

They were among a group of 11 Indians who were trying to enter the US through a near-empty stretch of the Canadian border. 

The Patels were travelling on foot to reach a van driver in northern Minnesota in 2022, navigating the cold farm fields as the temperature dipped. 

Currently, two men accused of running a smuggling ring on either side of the US-Canada border are awaiting trial, scheduled for Monday (Nov 18).

The accused were identified as Harshkumar Patel alias "Dirty Harry", an experienced smuggler, who was coordinating things from Canada, and Steve Shand, a driver recruited by Harshkumar, was on the US side. 

Both were accused of being part of a sophisticated human smuggling operation, which has been feeding a fast-growing population of Indians illegally living in the US. 

However, both have pleaded not guilty. 

On his last trip in January 2022, Shand was about to pick up 11 more Indian migrants, including the Patels. However, only seven survived the extreme cold.

The smuggling network was reportedly charging up to $90,000 per person. Meanwhile, many families like the Patels sold their farmlands or used heavy savings to fund these journeys. 

It wasn’t until much later that the Canadian authorities found the Patel family who had died due to the extreme cold.

According to experts, there is a lot of illegal immigration from India because of everything from political repression to a dysfunctional American immigration system that can take years to navigate legally. 

US Customs and Border Protection (US-CBP) data for fiscal year 2024 revealed that 90,415 Indians were arrested trying to enter the US illegally via Canada and Mexico. Out of these, nearly half were from the Indian state of Gujarat. 

Moreover, 43,764 Indians were caught at the northern US-Canada border, making it the highest recorded so far.