Two men found guilty of human smuggling after Indian family froze to death crossing US-Canada border

Two men have been convicted on charges relating to human smuggling in a trial over the deaths of an Indian family that froze to death crossing the US-Canada border.

Indian national Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, and Steve Shand, 50, an American from Florida, were part of a sophisticated smuggling operation that brought people from Canada into the US illegally, prosecutors said.

Patel coordinated the deadly crossing in January 2022, and Shand was a driver who was supposed to pick up 11 Indian migrants on the Minnesota side of the border.

Only seven made it across. Canadian authorities found Jagdish Patel and his wife, Vaishaliben, their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi, and 3-year-old son, Dharmik, frozen to death.

Jagdish, the father, was discovered holding his youngest son in a blanket.

The two men were convicted by a jury in a federal trial in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

The trial has shone a light on a dramatic increase in the number of people crossing into the US from Canada in recent years.

The U.S. Border Patrol arrested more than 14,000 Indians on the Canadian border in the year ending Sept. 30. By 2022, the Pew Research Center estimates there were more than 725,000 Indians living illegally in the U.S., behind only Mexicans and El Salvadorans.