The trial of two men charged with federal human smuggling crimes began Monday, Nov. 18. The case originates three years ago, after a family from India froze to death while attempting to cross the U.S.-Canada border.
The Patel family — a mother, father and two young children — were attempting to cross the U.S. northern border into Minnesota in January 2022 when they were caught in blizzard conditions with temperatures plummeting to minus 36 degrees, according to The Associated Press.
The family wandered for hours through Canadian fields, scheduled to meet a human smuggler on the other side, but never made it.
Prosecutors say the suspects — Steve Shand, a 50-year-old man from Florida, and 29-year-old Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, an Indian national with no relation to the victimized family — ran a scheme to shuttle Indian migrants across the border.
Shand had been waiting for Indian migrants to cross the border on Jan. 19, 2022, when the Patel family was struggling in freezing conditions. All four members of the family were found frozen to death in a field.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, agents arrested more than 14,000 Indian nationals attempting to cross the U.S. northern border last year.
The 29-year-old suspect, Patel, was in the United States illegally, the AP reports, and had been refused a visa five times. Patel allegedly recruited Shand to help smuggle migrants over the border.
Patel’s attorney, Thomas Leinenweber, told the AP that his client came to the U.S. to escape poverty and build a better life for himself and now “stands unjustly accused of participating in this horrible crime.”
Both defendants have pleaded not guilty.
