The pair of human traffickers received 10 and 6.5 years’ sentences on Wednesday after the death of an Indian family, including two children. It froze during the 2022 Blizzard While trying to illegally cross the northern border from Canada to the United States.
Announcement of the verdict, US District Judge John Tanheim said, “In many respects, the crime is extraordinary as it led to the unimaginable deaths of four individuals, including two children.” AP.
The outlet reported that Tunheim said “these were obviously avoidable deaths.”
This followed the ju apprentice in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, and found 29-year-old Hirschma Raman Lal Patel and 50-year-old Steve Shand. guilty of four countsincluding conspiracy to illegally bring immigrants to the country.
Patel, an Indian citizen, was sentenced to nearly 11 years in prison. Shand, a US citizen from Florida, received six and five years in a two-year, supervised release. The AP reported that neither of the men showed any emotion when they received the sentence.
Images of this combination are displayed from left to right. An undated photo released by the Sherburn County Sheriff’s Office shows unresolved photos released by Hirschkumar Patel on the Elk River, Minnesota, and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. (AP photo/ice)
This follows the deaths of both Jagdish Patel, his wife, Vaishariben in 2022. He followed Vaishariben in his 30s, his daughter Vihangi (11 years old) and son Dalmik (3), and in January 2022, his daughter Vihangi and son Dalmik were frozen. The family had no connection to Patel.
The family was among 11 immigrants from the same group that had a dangerous crossing in Minnesota that January. After only seven people accomplished it, the family was found dead by Canadian authorities the following day. The other seven who decided to be Indian citizens were stopped by us. Border Guard in North Dakota Near Minnesota.
Prosecutors said Patel, also known as “Dirty Harry,” organized the plan, and Shand was the driver. Both men were involved in international smuggling rings that helped Indians illegally cross borders.
A statement Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice said the recorded wind coldness on the morning of the incident was -36 degrees.
The AP reported that US prosecutor Michael McBride wrote that his father had died while trying to protect Dharmik’s face from “a fierce wind” with frozen gloves. Vihangi was wearing “improper boots and gloves” and her mother “falls over the chain link fence, where she must have thought salvation was in the back.”
The border marker between the US and Canada is shown on Thursday, January 20, 2022 just outside Emerson, Manitoba. (John Woods/Canadian press, File via the AP)
DOJ said after being discovered in his car with two aliens, Shand claimed there were no others in the snow. However, five more aliens emerged from the fields, including one of the hypothermia who was airlifted to a community hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Another human smuggler, who was part of the ring, testified at trial that he smuggled over 500 Indian immigrants across the US border and smuggled over $400,000, and that migrants usually work in the US to pay off their debts to smugglers.
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Commenting on the ruling, Jamie Holt, a special agent in the U.S. Ice Homeland Security Investigation, said “Today’s ruling marks a critical moment of accountability, in a case that uncovers the tragic reality of human smuggling.”
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The US/Canadian border has seen a surge in illegal immigration over the past few years, prompting for more security measures at US non-trafficking borders. (CBP)
“As we’ve seen it many times, traffickers don’t care about humanity.” Lisa Kirkpatrick, a US lawyer for the Minnesota area, added: “As we’ve seen it many times, human traffickers don’t care about humanity.”
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“Every time I think about this case, I think about this family, including two beautiful little children left behind by the accused to freeze in a snowstorm,” Kirkpatrick said. “I am proud of the work of our law enforcement partners in taking these defendants accountable for their indescribable crimes.”
Brie Stimson of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.
