One of two men cconvicted of human smuggling operation at the Canada-US border, was granted permission to appeal in the United States without a lawyer.
Harshkumar Patel was sentenced to just over 10 years in prison last year after a Minnesota jury found him guilty of being part of a smuggling ring that saw people from India brought to Canada on student visas, then driven to areas near the border and told to cross.
On one trip in 2022, a couple and their two children froze to death while hiking during a snowstorm at night from southern Manitoba to Minnesota.
The court was told that Patel helped organize this and other trips, while his co-accused – Steve Shand, who was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison – worked as a driver and picked up migrants as they crossed the border into the United States.
Both men appealed – Shand through a lawyer and Patel on his own after the court approved his self-representation application.
Patel's appeal centers on seven arguments, including the claim that the prosecution failed to prove he smuggled or attempted to smuggle aliens into the U.S. from an official port of entry.
Receive daily national news
Get the day's top news, political, economic and current affairs headlines delivered to your inbox once a day.
This is one of four charges Patel and Shand were found guilty of during a trial in Minnesota district court in 2024.
“The evidence at appellant's trial was wholly insufficient to demonstrate that he was involved in activities that occurred prior to the illegal aliens' entry into the United States,” Patel said in the filing.
“Although the government linked him to Shand…there was no other evidence suggesting any direct interaction with aliens.”
Patel also claims that the Indian family died because of the actions of others, not his, and that there were “procedural errors” in determining the sentence.
Shand's appeal, filed in November, argues that the Border Patrol agent who discovered the van with migrants inside did not have reasonable grounds to stop the vehicle. Shand's lawyer also argues that the family's death was not “causally related” to Shand's actions.
Frozen bodies of Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife Vaishaliben Patel, 37; their 11-year-old daughter Vihangi; and their three-year-old son Dharmik were found meters from the border in January 2022.
Patel is a common name in India and this family was not related to Harshkumar Patel.
The air temperature was -23 degrees, and the wind dropped below -35. There were no buildings or trees to provide shelter. The court was told that smugglers on the Canadian side of the border gave the family and several other migrants jeans, thin jackets, hats and mittens intended for warmer weather.
The one who crossed the border suffered severe hypothermia and was flown to Minneapolis for treatment.
North of the border, a man living in Brampton, Ontario. – Phenil Patel – was arrested in September last year following a US extradition request. He is accused of participating in a smuggling ring.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
