Washington: At least four people, including three Indian nationals, have been arrested in upstate New York along the Canada border when they were trying to enter the US illegally, officials here said on Wednesday. The four people were arrested after they jumped off a moving freight train on the International Railroad Bridge in the city of Buffalo.
A woman was among the Indians arrested. The fourth person, a man, was identified from the Dominican Republic. The men left the woman who became immobile due to an injury as they were approached by the police and were caught shortly after a foot pursuit.
The injured woman received first aid from Erie County Sheriff’s deputies and US Customs and Border Protection officers (CBP). After treatment, the woman was transported by ambulance to a local medical centre. The investigation concluded that all four people were undocumented non-citizens.
The three men are being processed for removal and detained in Batavia Federal Detention Facility awaiting a deportation hearing for charges under Sections 212 and 237 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a media release said. The woman remains at a local medical centre awaiting further medical treatment.
Illegal entry into the US
According to the New York Times, officials at the northern border recorded 191,603 encounters with people crossing into the United States in 2023, a 41 per cent increase from 2022. Perilous conditions have led to repeated rescues of migrants who get stranded in dark woods or have to be treated for hypothermia, as a dozen migrants died from attempting to cross the border in the last two months.
More than 12,200 people were apprehended crossing illegally from Canada last year, a 241 per cent jump from the 3,578 arrested the previous year. Most of them were Mexicans, who could fly to Canada without a visa. Many migrants crossing illegally into the United States, officials said, are cutting through traversable woods that may still be perilous. The issue of migration has been a topic of fierce debate between Republicans and Democrats as US heads towards its next presidential elections this year.
In January 2022, a family of four from Gujarat, including two children, was found frozen to death while attempting to enter the US from Canada illegally. An Indian-origin man was recently arrested in Chicago in connection with the case as authorities are probing a human smuggling conspiracy. The deceased were identified as Jagdish Patel, 39, Vaishaliben Patel, 37, Vihangi Patel, 11, and Dharmik Patel, 3.
Gujarat human smuggling probe
Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, also known as ‘Dirty Harry’, ‘Param Singh’ and ‘Haresh Rameshlal Patel’, has been charged with the criminal offence of “transportation of illegal alien and conspiracy to bring and attempt to bring an illegal alien to the United States”. Court documents, affidavit and criminal complaint filed in the case against Patel in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota provide detailed information about Patel’s involvement in the human smuggling conspiracy.
After the bodies were recovered, border patrol authorities arrested Steve Shand, 47, on January 19 for transporting two other Indian nationals. The affidavit described the January 2022 incident as “an unsuccessful attempt by a human smuggling organisation” to smuggle the Patel family into the US from Canada. “More specifically, this affidavit concerns the involvement of one member of that organisation, a man named Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel in the US,” it said.
Shand has told Homeland Security officials that Patel “recruited him to transport illegal aliens from the US/Canadian border in Minnesota to the Chicago area for money”. “Shand described five total trips he had made to the international border in Minnesota between December 2021 and January 2022, to transport Indian nationals, including the January 19, 2022 trip during which he was arrested,” the affidavit added.
(with inputs from agencies)
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