More than three years after a family of four from India froze to death while trying to enter the U.S. along a remote stretch of the Canadian border in a blizzard, the convicted ringleader of an international human smuggling plot was sentenced in Minnesota on Wednesday to 10 years in prison.
Federal prosecutors had recommended nearly 20 years for Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, and nearly 11 years for the driver who was supposed to pick them up, Steve Anthony Shand, who got 6 1/2 years Wednesday with two years’ supervised release.
“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.
Patel, in an orange uniform and handcuffed, declined to address the court. He showed no visible emotion as the sentence was issued. The judge noted that he is likely to be deported to his native India after completing his sentence. He cooperated as marshals handcuffed him and led him from the courtroom.
Shand, who had been free pending sentencing, showed no visible reaction to his own sentence, either. The judge ordered him to report to prison on July 1 and agreed to recommend that he serve his sentence at the Federal Prison Camp in Pensacola, Florida, where he can be near his family.
The judge handed down the sentences at the federal courthouse in the northwestern Minnesota city of Fergus Falls, where the two men were tried and convicted on four counts apiece last November.
The smuggling operation
Prosecutors said during the trial that Patel, an Indian national who they say went by the alias “Dirty Harry,” and Shand, a U.S. citizen, were part of a sophisticated illegal operation that brought dozens of people from India to Canada on student visas and then smuggled them across the U.S. border.
They said the victims, Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife, Vaishaliben, who was in her mid-30s; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and their 3-year-old son, Dharmik, froze to death. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police found their bodies just north of the border between Manitoba and Minnesota on Jan. 19, 2022.
The family was from Dingucha, a village in the western Indian state of Gujarat, as was Harshkumar Patel. Patel is a common Indian surname, and the victims were not related to the defendant. The couple were schoolteachers, local news reports said. So many villagers have gone overseas in hopes of better lives — legally and otherwise — that many homes there stand vacant.
Harsh blizzard conditions
The father died while trying to shield Dharmik’s face from a “blistering wind” with a frozen glove, prosecutor Michael McBride wrote. Vihangi was wearing “ill-fitting boots and gloves.” Their mother “died slumped against a chain-link fence she must have thought salvation lay behind,” McBride wrote.
A nearby weather station recorded the wind chill that morning at -36 Fahrenheit..
Seven other members of their group survived the foot crossing, but only two made it to Shand’s van, which was stuck in the snow on the Minnesota side. One woman who survived had to be flown to a hospital with severe frostbite and hypothermia. Another survivor testified he had never seen snow before arriving in Canada.
What prosecutors say
Kirkpatrick told reporters after Wednesday’s hearing that as a lifelong Minnesotan, she would not have gone out in that weather. “But the defendants sent into that weather 11 migrants — Indian nationals who were not dressed appropriately, were ill-prepared for the weather they faced that night,” she said.
Kirkpatrick pointed out that the family who died had walked for hours trying to find Shand, who had been sent by Patel.
“These defendants knew it was cold. In fact, they knew it was life-threatening cold,” she said. “They didn’t care. What they cared about was money, and their callous indifference to the value of human life cost a family of four their lives.”
What defense attorneys say
Patel’s attorney, Leinenweber, said his client will appeal but declined to speculate on what grounds.
“He had kind of resigned himself to the fact that the sentence would be longer than he had hoped,” the attorney said. “And he’s not happy with it. But he does wish to appeal and take advantage of his rights.”
Shand’s attorney, federal defender Aaron Morrison, did not talk to reporters afterward.
Morrison acknowledged in a presentencing filing that Shand has “a level of culpability” but argued that his role was limited — that he was just a taxi driver who needed money to support his wife and six children.
“Mr. Shand was on the outside of the conspiracy; he did not plan the smuggling operation, he did not have decision-making authority, and he did not reap the huge financial benefits as the real conspirators did,” Morrison wrote.
Human smuggling at the northern border
A top regional U.S. Customs and Border Protection official told reporters Wednesday that human smuggling along the border in the area has been holding “fairly steady,” with no sharp increases or decreases.
“We hope that this is a strong message, and especially during the inclement months,” said Michael Hanson, the acting chief patrol agent for the Grand Forks, North Dakota, sector, which covers North Dakota and Minnesota. “You know, there very well could have been 11 deaths associated with this event.”
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