An Indian family of four froze to death while trying to cross from Canada to the United States in January 2022, as the temperature in the country dropped to minus 36 Fahrenheit (minus 38 Celsius).

The Gujarati family included Jagdish Patel, his wife Vaishaliben and their two young children.

Jagdish’s 3-year-old son Dharmik Patel was found frozen in his father’s arms, wrapped in a blanket.

They were among a group of 11 Indians trying to enter the United States through a nearly empty stretch of the Canadian border.

The Patels were traveling on foot to reach a pickup truck driver in northern Minnesota in 2022, navigating cold farm fields as temperatures dropped.

The two men were later charged with running a smuggling ring on both sides of the border. They are currently awaiting a hearing scheduled for Monday.

The defendants were identified as Harshkumar Patel (alias “Dirty Harry”), an experienced smuggler who was coordinating work from Canada, and Steve Shand, a driver hired by Patel, was on the U.S. side.

Both were accused of being part of a sophisticated human trafficking operation that fed the rapidly growing population of Indians living illegally in the United States.

Moreover, both of them did not admit their guilt.

On his last trip in January 2022, Shand was about to pick up 11 more Indian immigrants, including the Patels. However, he could only escape from the extreme cold.

The smuggling ring reportedly charges up to $90,000 per person. Meanwhile, many families like the Patels sold their farmland or used large savings to finance these journeys.

Canadian authorities later found the Patels dead from cold.

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Illegal immigration from India is caused by many things, experts say, from political pressures to a dysfunctional American immigration system that can take years to legally navigate.

US Customs and Border Protection (US-CBP) fiscal year 2024 data revealed that 90,415 Indians were arrested while trying to enter the US illegally through Canada and Mexico. Almost half of them were from Gujarat.

Moreover, 43,764 Native Americans were apprehended along the northern US-Canada border, the highest number ever recorded.

(With input from institutions)