(This article was originally published on 25 January, and is being reposted after the High Commission of India, Ottawa, on 27/28 January, confirmed the identity of the family that died on the US-Canada border.)
Dry snow was blowing through the night. It was the whitest blizzard of this winter.
The terrain, unforgiving. Winds were harsh across the open prairie, making minus 23 degrees Celsius feel like minus 35 degrees Celsius.
Hours of walking through the dark fields in an extremely frigid night, what the Indian victims of human trafficking likely felt was complete disorientation.
"We have seen people get turned around. They are going round and round in circles instead of walking towards their destination. Without realising they become disoriented and confused. They can’t see anything and lose all sense of direction. There was hardly any shelter," says the Media Officer of Manitoba Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Corporal Julie Courchaine.
She further added that "with the wind and snow drifts of 19 January night, it would have been terribly hard to walk through, especially as we believe that they did not want to be detected when they got to the US."
Unfortunately, a family of four, Indians from Gujarat, could not make it to US after suffering the enveloped-by-snow, night-long walk, and were found dead, frozen, in the middle of a blizzard in Manitoba province, on the Canadian side of the border.
'Frost Bite Conditions': How the Remaining People Were Rescued
They were just 12 metres, only 40 steps away, from United States, their destination.
Seven of their companions were rescued in North Dakota after crossing the border, by the US Border Patrol.
"This is definitely a rescue. The blizzard conditions created a white-out with snow blowing constantly. You see nothing. It’s completely disorienting. There is no cell phone signal so you can’t dial out to get help," says Anthony S Good, the Chief Patrol Agent, in charge of US Border Patrol for the Grand Forks Sector, which encompasses 861 miles of US border with Canada.
He went on to say that "a border patrol agent who was on duty spotted the group in the morning, and called for other agents."
"Two out of seven people we came in contact with had hypothermia. When we find people in these conditions we immediately go into safety mode to get them warmth. We called for medical emergency help, and for a medical helicopter to take one of them to a big hospital due to frost bite conditions. If we had not rescued them, they would have not made it. They are recovering thankfully. The individual with the frost bite is coming out and will not need an amputation."
The USBP agents made frantic attempts to find the four who had been left behind on the Canadian side of the border.
"We figured that there were more left behind. We found clothes for a toddler in a backpack and there was no toddler with this group, so immediately we called air units for aerial searches and more patrol agents. We contacted our partners in Canada, the RCMP," adds Good.
Additionally, Courchaine says that the RCMP received a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) call at 9:23 am when they were already out on patrol.
"They started further patrols, extensive patrols. You can’t access it via regular vehicles. We have tracks, snow machines and all-terrain vehicles. Finally, at 1:30 pm, the RCMP discovered the bodies."
The Canadians will announce the details of the deceased once their identities are confirmed and their kin have been informed. The post-mortems have been delayed because of 'the condition of the bodies'.
'Illegal Crossings Through This Area in Winter Highly Unusual': What Data Shows
The frozen lakes of the US northern border are among the most dangerous waterways in the world.
It is rare for patrol agents to find people attempting to cross the border in the Grand Forks Sector in winter, says Good. "It’s very extreme. When I drove to work this morning it was minus -8 degrees Fahrenheit (-22 degrees Celsius). All along North Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, miles of border with Canada has a lot of waterways that freeze. People make illegal crossings everyday across the northern border, but in the Grand Forks Sector I would say crossings are more weekly than daily", he adds.
Indians trying to cross through this sector has surprised border agents on both sides of the border.
The CBP data since 2020 shows that no Indians have been apprehended by the CBP in the Grand Forks Sector.
A total of 227 persons of other nationalities were apprehended in the sector in 2020, trying to illegally cross over from Canada.
Indians do get apprehended and detained making the trek from Canada, but have preferred other regions to walk in from, like Blayne in Washington and Swanton in Vermont.
A hundred-and-twenty-nine Indians in 2020, 42 in 2021, and 22 in 2022 fiscal years have been nabbed along the US northern border, but none in Grand Forks.
'Illegal Immigrants Usually Go From US to Canada'
Immigration lawyers in Canada believe that illegal migrants prefer to enter Canada from US rather than vice versa. “The laws that the two countries follow after apprehending an illegal entrant at the border differs. In the US, they get detained and have to spend many months at a detention centre as they go through their immigration hearings. Expensive bail bonds are involved. While in Canada, the migrants are released with interim work permits and federal health insurance until their claim is heard and a determination is made. Some foreign nationals may be detained for the purpose of examination. As compared to the US, where detention is the norm, detention is an exception in Canada,” says Manmeet Singh Rai, an immigration attorney based in Toronto, who has studied law in US and worked with asylum seekers.
Corporal Courchaine also says that the number of people illegally crossing over into Canada from US were high during the previous US government.
"We do tend to focus on people are coming from States. Back then we saw a lot of people crossing, during Trump years," she claims.
The RCMP interceptions in Manitoba were only 19 in 2021 compared to 1,018 in 2017; and were 4,246 in 2021 for the entire border compared to 20,593 in 2017.
Todd Bensman, a former counter-terrorism intelligence analyst for the Texas government, and a Senior National Security Fellow at Center for Immigration Studies is of the opinion that illegal migrants had fled US to find a safe haven in Canada.
"There were a lot of foreign nationals under deportation orders in US during Trump’s presidency. In order to escape deportation thousands crossed over into Canada – Pakistanis, Syrians, Indians. But Canada has a rule that if their asylum applications are rejected then they have to return to US which was their first port of entry. So, first they were fleeing Trump and now they are fleeing Canada."
Bensman further added that "if they (refugees) return to US and disappear, then they are safe because Biden has eliminated all deportations. Indians could be moving ahead of Canadian immigration and Canadian deportation which might fly them back to India, in which case you don’t care what the weather is like."
But weather is what the agencies protecting the US-Canada border send warnings about.
'Don't Trust the Smugglers,' Border Patrol Warns
Anthony Good says that "if there is one message, it is don’t trust the smugglers. They don’t care about human life, they only care about money. It’s your life and those of your loved ones. You could be out in situations of extreme danger."
"The smugglers are a big part of the misinformation due to which people leave their families and countries behind to risk their lives. Border patrol has rescued 12,000 lives across US borders in fiscal year 2020-2021", he adds.
Talking about the Indians rescued by his team, Good asserts that "they were very scared when we found them. In the conditions we found them, they certainly didn’t think the trek will be that treacherous. They are very upset. Anyone thinking of crossing the border illegally in these extreme conditions should not do it."
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