Late last year, Townhall covered how a trial surrounding the deaths of a family of four that froze to death while crossing the US-Canada border would begin.
In January 2022, Jagdish Patel, from India, tried to slip his family across a barren stretch of the Canadian border undetected. That night, wind chills reached minus 36 degrees Fahrenheit. Patel, his wife, and his two children were found dead from the cold.
A driver, Steve Shand, 50, waited for them in northern Minnesota. He previously told his boss, “Make sure everyone is dressed for the blizzard conditions, please.”
The operation was being coordinated by Harshkumar Patel, 29, an experienced human smuggler. He is not related to the family that died from this failed human smuggling plot.
Prosecutors said that Harshkumar Patel and Shand were part of an operation that scouted clients in India, got them Canadian student visas, arranged transportation and smuggled them into the U.S., primarily through Washington state or Minnesota.
Late last month, Harshkumar Patel was convicted and sentenced in Minnesota to 10 years in prison. Federal prosecutors had recommended nearly 20 years.
Shand was sentenced to 6 and a half years with two years’ supervised release (via the Associated Press):
“The crime in many respects is extraordinary because it did result in the unimaginable death of four individuals, including two children,” U.S. District Judge John Tunheim said. “These were deaths that were clearly avoidable.”
Patel’s attorney, Thomas Leinenweber, told the court before sentencing that Patel maintains his innocence and argued he was no more than a “low man on the totem pole.” He asked for time served, 18 months.
But the acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Lisa Kirkpatrick, said Patel exploited the migrants’ hopes for a better life in America, out of his own greed.
“We should make no mistake, it was the defendant’s greed that set in motion the facts that bring us here today,” she said.
Harshkumar Patel is likely to be deported to India after completing his sentence.
Harshkumar Patel is likely to be deported to India, his native country, after completing his sentence. The AP noted that he was living in the US illegally.
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