Researched by: Sara Varghese & Prafula Grace Busi

First, tell me what happened…

• A group of eleven Indians were part of a smuggling operation to bring them illegally into the United States. 
• They were dropped off near Emerson, Manitoba, on Tuesday and were told to walk across the border at night.
• The temperature at the time was minus 35°C—and they crossed in the middle of a blizzard. 
• The family of four became separated from the group. As a Canadian official noted: “These victims faced not only the cold weather but also endless fields, large snowdrifts and complete darkness.”
• The mother, father, teenager and a baby were later found frozen to death just 50 feet away from the US border. 
• US border officials also arrested five other Indians—who appear to be part of the same group. They had been walking in the cold for 11 hours. 
• One woman had to be hospitalized and has since lost part of her hand to frostbite. 
• Also arrested: Stephen Shand, a US citizen, who is suspected of organising the operation—and who was supposed to pick up these people on the US side. 

Who are these people? Their identities are being kept confidential for now. But we do know that all of those arrested spoke Gujarati and very little English. According to Indian Express, the family is from a village in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Residents claim they left India with 3-4 other families who have gone missing. We also know that one of the men arrested entered Canada on a fake student visa—and was planning to join his uncle in Chicago.

Location to note: The area where the Indians were trying to cross—from Emerson, Manitoba, to Pemberton, North Dakota—is extremely dangerous in winter:

“While the prairie landscape the group traversed is largely flat, the sprawling grain fields are deceptively dangerous in the winter. Cold winds whip relentlessly and blowing snow dramatically reduces visibility. Deep snow drifts make movement slow and tedious. All these difficulties are compounded in the dark.”

This is what the map looks like: 

Big data point to note: Many immigration experts are surprised by this latest tragedy. The reason: Illegal border crossings from Canada into the US are relatively rare. In 2020/21, only 50,003 such incidents were detected by border patrols—compared to 200,000 on the Mexican border in July 2021 alone. In fact, most of the illegal immigration flows from the US into Canada—which spiked during the Trump years due to a harsh crackdown on undocumented migrants. 

Do a lot of Indians do this—enter the US illegally? 

The stats: 

• India is the fifth largest source of illegal migrants in the US. 
• The top states of origin: Punjab is #1, followed by Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. The fact these were all Gujaratis is unusual in itself.  
• And the numbers are rising in recent years. US Border Patrol figures show that the number of Indians detained on the US-Mexico border spiked from just 76 in 2007 to more than 7,600 in 2019. 
• And the number of Indians arrested while trying to cross the border shot up by 60% in 2021—after the US opened its borders.

The typical route: The Mexican border remains the most popular way to enter the United States. But making it to Mexico requires a convoluted and hazardous journey. Migrants zigzag across the globe—via Russia, the Mideast, the Caribbean and finally Central America. They typically land in countries like Guatemala and Ecuador which have visa waiver schemes for Indian nationals. 

On to Mexico: This is what the trip from Guatemala looks like:

“I was packed along with 20 others in the back of a truck with just enough room for us to stand and were taken on a 24 hour journey in such circumstances. We were unable to breathe at times, and had no water or food. We were told that if anybody died we should simply throw the body out and carry on.”

Mind the Gap: The above is the easier version. Many are forced to walk through the Darien Gap—a hazardous 96-km stretch between Colombia and Panama:

“The whole journey through this gap has to be undertaken either on foot or by small boats. There is a presence of large number of deadly snakes, mosquitoes, and other harmful tropical insects and combine this with the anti-government guerrillas.”

The path is often strewn with dead bodies of those who didn’t make it. This is what the Gap looks like:

The last push: is at the Mexican border. The migrants are shoved into overcrowded camps—where they wait until they can make the run over the border. Most are caught by US border officials and sent right back. This after a long, hazardous journey—and paying Rs 2-3 million (20-30 lakhs) to smugglers for the privilege.

A classic example: 19-year-old Amandeep Singh travelled from New Delhi to Russia, Cuba and Ecuador before walking through Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico—a journey that took four months. He was among the 300 Indians who were caught and deported by Mexican authorities. Singh never even made it to the United States. 

Point to note: The Canadian border is a relatively less chaotic and safer route into the US. Migrants found by US patrol officers on the Mexican border are often dehydrated, starving, or victims of rape or robbery. Back in 2019, 6-year-old Gurupreet Kaur died of dehydration in the Arizona desert—after smugglers forced her and her mother to cross the border on a day when temperatures soared well over 42°C.

Why would they even do this?

Most of the migrants are from the Northern states—and many of them are young men or young families. Unlike those from Honduras etc, they are not fleeing war or famine. As NPR notes:

“[M]ost of the would-be migrants face no credible threats to their safety or livelihoods. They're simply leaving India for better job opportunities abroad and to reunite with relatives who've already emigrated. Rejected for visas by going through the proper channels, they've gone about trying to reach the US in the riskiest possible ways.”

Also fuelling the desire for the good life: The success of the Indian diaspora who have “living conditions that an average Punjabi in the villages can't even imagine. Their stories now fuel the ambitions of relatives who dream of similar kickstarts.”

More interestingly: These are not poor people—who could never afford the exorbitant prices charged by smugglers. In fact, the spike in the number of Punjabis risking the journey to the US-Mexico border has coincided with a spike in land prices at home. It is easier for parents to sell the land and pay the fees.

The bottomline: The great tragedy of this fantasy of the good life is that it is almost never fulfilled. Those who are sent back work the fields to pay off the debts accrued by this expensive failure. Those who succeed work menial odd jobs as they struggle to build a new life:

“[T]he American dream ends more or less the same way for most of them, with a similar final act for those who entered and those who couldn't: A hard, never-ending fight to make enough money to be eventually able to pay off the debt they took on to fund that dream.”

Reading list

News9 has the most comprehensive report on the deaths on the Canadian border. The Toronto Star has more on the immigration policies in the US and Canada. Insider explains why the Canadian border is safer than the Mexican one. Economic Times offers an excellent deep dive into the long journey from Punjab to Mexico. NPR looks at what motivates so many Indians to make this desperate journey. CNN has the backstory on the death of 6-year-old Gurupreet Kaur.