Indian Family That Froze to Death While Illegally Crossing Into the U.S. From Canada is Identified by Media Reports

The Indian family of four that froze to death while attempting to cross over illegally into the U.S. from Canada has sent shockwaves in a small town in Gujarat. Reports in the Indian media said the family belonged to Dingucha village in Kalol in Gandhinagar district. The reports identified the deceased as Jagdish Patel, 35, Vaishali Patel, 33, Vihanga Patel, 12, and Dharmik Patel, 3. Canadian authorities as well as India’s Ministry of External Affairs have yet to confirm the identity. 

Jagdish Patel’s father Baldev Patel, told the Indian Express that his son had left for Canada with his family 10 days ago. He said he hadn’t spoken to his son for the past few days and that he wasn’t aware of his son’s plans to move to the U.S.

A member of the family, identified by the Indian Express as Suresh, said that Jagdish Patel went to Canada on a tourist visa. Since there was no communication with him for the last four days, the family contacted the embassy.

An unidentified family member told the paper that they were informed by a relative in Canada that the description of the deceased given by the authorities matched that of “our family members, but we still hope for good.”

Sumitra Patel, a neighbor of the Patel family in Kalol to the Express that Jagdish Patel worked as a teacher in Gandhinagar. He later joined his brother’s factory in Ahmedabad, she told the paper, adding that the “family is financially well-off.”

The bodies of the Patel family were found after U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped Steve Shand, 47, of Deltona, Florida, on Jan. 19, while he was driving a 15-passenger van less than one mile south of the Canadian border in a rural area between the official ports of entry at Lancaster, Minnesota and Pembina, North Dakota. Two more Indian nationals were found in his van. 

Shand was charged with one count of “knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien had come to, entered, or remained in the United States in violation of law, having transported, and moved or having attempted to transport and move such aliens,” according to a DOJ press release. 

According to court documents, U.S. Border Patrol agents found five more Indian citizens, walking in the snow about a quarter-mile south of the Canadian border. They were seen while Shand and his passengers were being taken to a Border Patrol station in North Dakota. The Indian nationals, who spoke Gujarati, according to news reports, told law enforcement officials that were headed to an unstaffed gas plant in St. Vincent, Minnesota, where they were supposed to be picked up by someone, They said that they had been walking for more than 11 hours and had crossed the border from Canada into the U.S.

According to the DOJ, two of the surviving Indian nationals sustained serious injuries and were transported to a hospital. One of them was a woman, who reportedly might require partial amputation of one of her hands because of exposure to the extreme cold.