Hong Kong News

Nonpartisan, Noncommercial, unconstrained.
Friday, Mar 29, 2024

‘Mind-blowing tragedy’: deaths of Indian family at US-Canada border put visa sales under scrutiny

‘Mind-blowing tragedy’: deaths of Indian family at US-Canada border put visa sales under scrutiny

Many Indians embark on often treacherous journeys to North America through agents who are now the focus of anti-human trafficking officers

The signs are painted on every wall and hang from every lamp-post of this small Gujarat village. “Easy Canada visa, student and immigration,” states one. “Study in Canada, free application, spouse can apply,” claims another.

Indeed, in Dingucha, a village in rural west India, almost every house now has a family member either in Canada or the USA. It was a fact they used to proudly shout from the rooftops; but now, the village has fallen silent. Ask people about their relatives in north America – particularly the journey they took to get there – and they shrug their shoulders and walk off nervously.

It was a family of four – Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife Vaishali, 37, 11-year-old daughter Vihangi and three-year-old son Dharmik – who set off from Dingucha on 10 January, with Canada visitor visas stamped in their passports. They landed in Toronto on 12 January. Patel called his father and cousin back in India to let them know that it was cold, but they were all fine and in a hotel.

Six days later, the young family arrived in Emerson, a tiny town on the Canada-US border where night-time temperatures regularly drop below -35 degrees centigrade in the winter. It appears they were dropped off at a nearby point in brand new coats and gloves, and then began making the treacherous journey to America on foot, in the pitch dark, through what one local described as a freezing, “lunar-like landscape”. The next night, the Patel family were discovered frozen to death in the snow, 12 metres away from the US border.

Snow drifts in a farmer’s field just outside Emerson.


The “mind-blowing tragedy” – as it was described by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau – has thrown a spotlight on the many Indians who continue to embark on often treacherous journeys to North America.

Though India is developing fast, it is also plagued by sluggish economic growth, low wages and a lack of employment opportunities that have led to an ongoing jobs crisis. In January riots broke out in the Indian state of Bihar when around 10 million people applied for 40,000 jobs on the railways.

Over 75% of the population is still employed in the informal sector, where people earn only a few hundred rupees a day and there is no job security or benefits. In the formal sector, the unemployment rate has recently hit 8% as increasing numbers are going into higher education but failing to find non-blue collar jobs once they leave. Though Gujarat, the state where Patel lived, has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, 95% of the jobless are educated.

In Dingucha, most still make their living from farming fruit, wheat, cotton and spices. But Patel, who was the son of a farmer, was educated and before the pandemic had worked at a school in nearby Gandhinagar. However, over the last two years, after the school closed, he had moved his family back into his parent’s home in Dingucha and helped out in his brother’s garment factory and on his father’s farm.


Dingucha village head Mathur Ji Thakor, 64, described Patel as a “nice quiet man, very honest, a hard worker.”

“His livelihood seemed fine, but many people in our village have gone to Canada and the US and live good lives there, earning good money,” said Thakor. “So that’s probably where he got the idea from.” According to villager, Patel’s uncle and cousins lived in the US.

The news of Patel’s death has been greeted by a nervousness that the booming local business of facilitating visas to the US and Canada is now under international scrutiny. Agents, who charge vast sums, help people obtain visitor visas or student visas at dubious institutions in Canada, which they then illegally overstay. For those wishing to enter the US, the usual route is to go via Mexico or Canada and illegally cross the land border.

Relatives of the Patels gather to mourn their deaths at the family’s home in Dingucha.


By local estimates, more than 2,000 people from Dingucha have over the decades have gone to the US and Canada, and the money they have sent back has built several temples, the water tower, a school and multi-storey residences. “The whole village is scared that because of this incident, their relatives in America and Canada will be found and deported, so everyone has been told to shut their mouths,” said one village resident.

Patel’s cousin Jaswant Patel claimed to know few details. “It was only when Jagdish arrived in Canada that he called me,” he said. “He sounded happy on the phone but he did not mention plans to go on to America.” Due to the high cost of flying home the bodies, the family would be buried in Canada, he added.

But locals said that the high cost of paying an agent to facilitate these journeys to north America usually meant the whole family was involved in loaning the money. According to a Dingucha resident who had previous experience with the local visa agents, the standard cost for a family of four to get to the US is 16.5m rupees (£164,000) – a staggering sum, particularly for a rural farming community. However, Patel’s father, a farmer, is said to have paid half the sum in cash for his son’s travel to the US and the other half in the form of 20 acres of land.

The agents are now the focus on an investigation by India’s central Crime Investigation Department, who this week sent officers from the anti-human trafficking unit to the towns and cities around Dingucha where these agents operate. In the US and Canada, 13 agents allegedly facilitating illegal trafficking from India have been detained.

Anil Pratham, assistant director general of police in Gandhinagar, Gujarat’s capital, said they were “still waiting for information from the Canadian authorities” about the identities of seven other Gujaratis, said to be from villages neighboruing Dingucha, who were rescued alive a few miles way from the Patel family.

Police in Canada at first said the victims found in the blizzard included a boy in his teens and a baby, but Indian consular officials later confirmed the Patels’ identity. (The Royal Canadian Mounted Police did not respond to repeated requests for an explanation of the inaccurate initial report.)

While Canadian officials have said they hope the tragedy that befell the Patels would ward off those thinking about making the illegal journey, the appetite in Dingucha for a future in Canada or the US appeared not have waned.

Ashok Prajapati, 53, a local artist, said he hoped to send both his children to Canada, and that his 18-year-old son was currently waiting to hear about a student visa. “Everybody who is smart is trying to go,” he said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Hong Kong News
0:00
0:00
Close
It's always the people with the dirty hands pointing their fingers
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
Steve Jobs' Son Launches Venture Capital Firm With $200 Million For Cancer Treatments
Google reshuffles Assistant unit, lays off some staffers, to 'supercharge' products with A.I.
End of Viagra? FDA approved a gel against erectile dysfunction
UK sanctions Russians judges over dual British national Kara-Murza's trial
US restricts visa-free travel for Hungarian passport holders because of security concerns
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Political leader from South Africa, Julius Malema, led violent racist chants at a massive rally on Saturday
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
'I am not your servant': IndiGo crew member, passenger get into row over airline meal
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Spanish Citizenship Granted to Iranian chess player who removed hijab
US Senate Republican Mitch McConnell freezes up, leaves press conference
Speaker McCarthy says the United States House of Representatives is getting ready to impeach Joe Biden.
San Francisco car crash
This camera man is a genius
3D ad in front of Burj Khalifa
Next level gaming
BMW driver…
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The politician and the journalist lost control and started fighting on live broadcast.
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
Joe Biden admitted, in his own words, that he delivered what he promised in exchange for the $10 million bribe he received from the Ukraine Oil Company.
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
40,000 child slaves in Congo are forced to work in cobalt mines so we can drive electric cars.
×