Another Migrant Tragedy

"The agents told them that stormy cold weather conditions were ideal cover to cross into the U.S. undetected. They said it was their best opportunity and last chance to cross into the United States or return to India or stay back in Canada."

"'You have to walk in -35 degree Celsius to evade arrest by Canadian or U.S. security agents. Follow the lights of an American gas station because you will find no navigation available in the dark and extreme weather'."

Indian police official

 

"The victims were taken to Toronto in Canada and later to Vancouver. The agents then dumped them at Winnipeg in Manitoba province, leaving them to cross over to the U.S. on their own."

"[The migrants were] forced [to] walk in the snow [to cross the border]."

"There are deputy agents, main agents in India. The crossing agents in Canada and the U.S. help with legal and other assistance."

"The two wanted accused are agents from Canada and the United States."

Deputy Commissioner of Police Chaitanya Mandlik

Jagdish Patel, left; son Dharmik; wife Vaishali and daughter Vihangi are shown in this family photo released to the media at the time of their death in January 2022. Two men in India have now been charged with acting as immigration agents, culpable homicide, human trafficking and criminal conspiracy, in relation to the deaths of the Patels. (Vaishali Patel/Facebook)

 

It was a year ago that the bodies frozen in the snow on frigid winter terrain were found. They had set out with a larger group of an additional eleven people hoping to make the passage on foot from Manitoba during blizzard conditions. In the dark of night and white-out blizzard conditions, feeling the misery of -34degree Centigrade probing relentlessly through their winter parkas and boots, they became disoriented and separated from the larger group. They were a father, mother and two children, ages three and eleven.

Of the larger group of eleven, seven made their way to safety. After walking through these abysmal conditions for over eleven hours, the seven were apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol officers. The cause of death for Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife Vaishaliben Patel, 37, their daughter Vihangi, and three-year-old son Dharmik was ascribed to exposure to extreme cold. These were people originally from western India, the state of Gujarat, and they knew little about survival in Arctic conditions.

Theirs is a preventable tragedy. There have been others caught out in foul winter weather in isolated terrain who have suffered from frostbite, to the extent of losing limbs, in their determination to reach a desired destination. This family lost everything. The trend to illegal migration, to enter a country, pass through its borders surreptitiously rather than undergoing the lengthy process of legal immigration is on the rise everywhere. 

Patel family home in India

 

Elsewhere, the crossings themselves are so fraught with danger -- usually those undertaken by sea passage on inadequate vessels holding too many hopeful migrants -- the carnage of drowning deaths is pitifully large. There are opportunistic migrants, and there are people desperate to escape endemic poverty, discrimination, local violence, drugs, and conflict.Usually refugees listed with the United Nations have a fairly good chance of being accepted by Western democratic nations.

The aspiration to join a wealthy country for the imagined promises of future stability, acceptance, wealth, a good education for children and access to universal health services has its draw on people who believe that other countries' residents enjoy a superior, material and political way of life. The family of four that perished on a cold stormy winter night walking across the border form Canada into the United States chose a risky way of achieving their goal.

They were prepared to pay handsomely for the services of people smugglers, never imagining that they would be paying for a horrible trial that would end in the deaths of their two vulnerable children and themselves under dreadful circustances. Now, India has arrested two of four human traffickers they name as 'agents' who acted as seasoned enablers for unlawful entry across a country's borders, with the intention of living on an underground economy, or declaring themselves refugees to await an official government decision on acceptance or rejection of their claim.

 

 

The Patel family was reported to have been reluctant to cross the border under such extreme weather conditions, but that they succumbed to the assurances of the 'agents' looking after their aspirational welfare. Two of the smugglers were arrested and charged with culpable homicide, although four in total are suspected to have formed an illegal immigration network recruiting citizens of India who are able to pay the toll demanded to smuggle them into the United States.

The other two suspects forming the gang of four have been identified as one in Canada and another in the United States; 'crossing agents'. They were to be paid some $10,000 per person for smuggling these people to their destination of choice. So these were not people trying to escape poverty, but rather people from the world's largest democracy, hoping to enter the United States illegally to make a new life for themselves there; their rationale for that choice is unclear.

The group of illegal migrants a year ago in the care of organized smugglers had the benefit of being given identical cold weather clothing consisting of new winter coats with fur-trimmed hoods, gloves, ski masks and insulated rubber boots. The alleged driver assigned to pick the migrants up on their entry to Minnesota was arrested soon after the discovery of the bodies of the Patel family. His case is yet to be heard in court while authorities in the U.S. continue to investigate the human smuggling ring.