Two men convicted after migrants froze to death on Canada-U.S. border face sentencing

Two men are to be sentenced today for their role in a human smuggling operation that saw a family of four freeze to death on the Canada-U.S. border south of Winnipeg.

Harshkumar Patel and Steve Shand were convicted last fall on four charges related to bringing people illegally into the United States and transporting them.

Court was told during one operation in January of 2022, a couple from India and their two children were left to walk across the border in an overnight blizzard on the bald prairie, as temperatures dropped below -20 C.

Prosecutors say Patel organized the logistics while Shand would pick up migrants on the U.S. side in rented vehicles and drive them to cities such as Chicago.

Prosecutors in Minnesota are seeking prison sentences of a little more than 19 years for Patel and 10 years for Shand.

Shand's lawyer is seeking just over two years for his client, while Patel's lawyer has asked for a sentence below the normal guidelines due to Patel's circumstances and life history.

The men's trial last year heard they were involved in several smuggling trips between Manitoba and Minnesota in December 2021 and January 2022, in which people from India were brought to Canada on student visas then sent on foot across the border to the U.S.

The trial heard details of the deadly cold faced by a group of migrants the day Shand was arrested in a van on a remote road just south of the border.

The temperature was -23 C and the wind chill dipped below -35.

One migrant who survived the trek testified the group was driven to an area in Manitoba near the border and told to walk in a straight line in the dark, snowy night until they came to a van on the U.S. side. They were dressed in hats, jackets, gloves and boots designed for mild weather.

The group got separated in the driving snow. Some made it to Shand's van after walking for hours, including one whose hypothermia was so bad she was flown to Minneapolis for treatment.

Hours after that, the frozen bodies of Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife Vaishaliben Patel, 37; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and their three-year-old son, Dharmik, were found in a field in Manitoba just metres from the border. They were dressed in jeans and light jackets, and the boy's body was still in his father's arms.

Vaishaliben Patel's body was found away from the rest of the family, up against a chain-link fence near an unmanned natural gas facility. Prosecutors said it appears she had left her family to try to find help at the only building in sight that night.

Patel is a common name in India, and the family was not related to the accused.

Shand's lawyers said he was simply a taxi driver who was offered money by Harshkumar Patel to pick people up in different locations and was unaware he was doing anything wrong until the day of his arrest.

Patel's lawyers said their client was misidentified. Patel was only arrested last year, and his lawyers said that, unlike Shand, there is no evidence he was near the border.

A jury found the men guilty on all the charges they faced. After the verdict, U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger said it was a case of "unthinkable cruelty" in which the men valued money more than people's lives.