Jury seated in human smuggling case involving deaths of Indian family at Canada-U.S. border

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. -

Two men put financial profit over human life when they attempted to smuggle a couple from India and their two young children across the U.S.-Canada border in heavy snow, leading to the family freezing to death, prosecutors said Monday.

Prosecutors allege Indian national Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, ran part of the scheme and recruited 50-year-old Steve Shand to shuttle migrants across the border. Both men have pleaded not guilty to four federal counts related to human smuggling. Their trial in Minnesota is expected to last about five days.

Prosecutors say the family of four — 39-year-old Jagdish Patel; his wife, Vaishaliben, who was in her mid-30s; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and 3-year-old son, Dharmik — died on Jan. 19, 2022, after spending hours wandering in blizzard conditions. Shand had been waiting in a truck for 11 migrants, including the family from Gujarat state, as the wind chill reached minus 38 degrees Celsius.

Shand and Patel knew the winter weather conditions were extreme, but chose to go forward with a plan to smuggle migrants across the border on foot anyway, prosecutor Ryan Lipes said in his opening statement.

"The migrants were dropped at a dark isolated part of the Canadian border nowhere near a legal port of entry,” Lipes said.

When Jagdish Patel's body was found, he was holding Dharmik, who was wrapped in a blanket, prosecutors added.

“This case is about these two men putting profit over people’s lives, profit they earned by smuggling migrants from India across the Canadian border into the U.S,” Lipes told the jury.

Road signage is posted just outside of Emerson, Manitoba, Jan. 20, 2022. (John Woods/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

Attorney Thomas Leinenweber said his client, Harshkumar Patel, should never have been charged. Leinenweber said in his opening statement that no one would testify that Patel ever talked about a smuggling conspiracy or provide visual evidence of his involvement.

“There are certain universal feelings that we all have," Leinenweber said. "One of the worst feeling universally that anyone could feel is when you are wrongfully accused.”

Shand's attorney, Lisa Lopez, asked the jury to differentiate between the two defendants. She said Shand was an unwitting participant in the smuggling ring.

“Mr. Shand was used by Mr. Patel. And being used does not equate under the law to being guilty of conspiracy,” Lopez said.

Lopez said Shand and the migrants were duped by Patel and the smuggling network.

In an undated image released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, shows items found in a migrant child’s backpack. (U.S. Attorney's Office via AP)

A jury of eight men and six women, including two alternates, was seated Monday afternoon. Before jury selection began in the morning, defense attorneys objected to prosecutors’ plan to show seven photos of the frozen bodies of Jagdish Patel and his family, including close-up images of the children.

Another attorney for Shand, Aaron Morrison, said the heart-wrenching images could cause “extreme prejudice to the jury” and asked for them to be removed as evidence. Prosecutors argued the photos were necessary to show Shand and Harshkumar Patel did not prepare the family for the frigid conditions.

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim allowed the images to remain as evidence.

Patel is a common Indian surname and the victims were not related to Harshkumar Patel. Federal prosecutors say Harshkumar Patel and Shand were part of an international criminal network that scouted for clients in India, got them Canadian student visas, arranged transportation and smuggled them into the U.S., mostly through Washington state or Minnesota.

The U.S. Border Patrol arrested more than 14,000 Indians on the Canadian border in the year ending this Sept. 30. By 2022, the Pew Research Center estimates more than 725,000 Indians were living illegally in the U.S., behind only Mexicans and El Salvadorans.

A border marker, between the United States and Canada is shown just outside of Emerson, Manitoba, on Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. (John Woods/The Canadian Press via AP)

Leinenweber told The Associated Press beforehand that his client came to America to escape poverty and build a better life for himself and now "stands unjustly accused of participating in this horrible crime. He has faith in the justice system of his adopted country and believes that the truth will come out at the trial.”

Prosecutors filed court documents showing Patel was in the U.S. illegally after being refused a visa at least five times, and that he recruited Shand at a casino near their homes in Deltona, Florida, just north of Orlando.

Over five weeks, court documents show, Patel and Shand often communicated about the bitter cold as they smuggled five groups of Indians over a quiet stretch of the border. One night in December 2021, Shand messaged Patel that it was “cold as hell” while waiting to pick up one group, the documents say.

“They going to be alive when they get here?” he allegedly wrote.

During the last trip in January, Shand had messaged Patel, saying: “Make sure everyone is dressed for the blizzard conditions, please,” according to prosecutors.

In an image released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, shows how the migrants who survived the crossing were terribly inadequately dressed. (U.S. Attorney's Office via AP)

Prosecutors say Shand told investigators that Patel paid him about US$25,000 for the five trips.

Jagdish Patel grew up in Dingucha. He and his family lived with his parents, who were schoolteachers, according to local news reports.

Satveer Chaudhary is a Minneapolis-based immigration attorney who has helped migrants exploited by motel owners, many of them Gujaratis. He said smugglers and shady business interests promised many migrants an American dream that doesn’t exist when they arrive.

“The promises of the almighty dollar lead many people to take unwarranted risks with their own dignity, and as we’re finding out here, their own lives,” Chaudhary said.