Gujarat family among eight who died along US-Canada border

A family of four from Gujarat’s Mehsana district are among the eight persons who died this week trying to enter the United States border from Canada by boat across the St. Lawrence River.

The dead bodies identified include that of a family comprising a father, mother, son and daughter who hailed from Manekpura in Vijapur taluka. “The deceased include four of a family from Mehsana district. We are talking to their relatives and trying to gather more details,” said Achal Tyagi, superintendent of police, Mehsana.

They are identified as Praveenbhai Chaudhary, a farmer, and his wife Dakshaben Chaudhary, their son Meet Chaudhary and daughter Vidhi Chaudhary, officials said. The family had tourist visas to Canada and a local agent engaged in human trafficking helped them for their illegal attempt to enter the US, they said, declining to be named.

Jashu Chaudhary, a cousin of Pravin Chaudhary, told media persons that he had a conversation with them a few weeks ago and that they had gone to Canada in February on a vacation.

The incident is similar to a series of such events for over a year where families trying to make it to US illegally have met with tragedy. The illegal immigration scam came to light in January 2022 following the Dingucha tragedy in which four of a family froze to death in Canada while allegedly attempting to cross over illegally to the US.

Dingucha is the name of the village, about 40km from Ahmedabad and in Gandhinagar district, to which the family belonged. Gujarat police and state agencies began hunting for human traffickers after Canadian police found Jagdish Patel, 35, his wife, Vaishali, 33, and their children Vihanga, 12, and Dharmik, 3, were frozen to death in an empty field on January 19 last year.

On October 16, 36-year-old Brijkumar Yadav, who earlier worked at a factory in Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation in Chattral, died after he fell off a metal barrier on the US-Mexico border (also known as the Trump Wall) while holding his three-year-old son, who survived.

The pursuit for better opportunities seems to have driven him and his family by taking an illegal route that endangered their lives. The victim was scaling over a 30ft border fence while carrying his son when they fell to the ground on the Mexican side of the border in Tijuana. His wife suffered a fractured hip and an arm injury.

On December 14, Gujarat police arrested the mastermind in the illegal immigration scam, Bobby alias Bharat Patel, from Ahmedabad. Patel is believed to have arranged the infiltration of the Dingucha family. His arrest, by the Gujarat police’s state monitoring cell, was in connection with a gambling raid last year in July that was being run in Ahmedabad under the garb of a charitable trust.

n January this year, police arrested two more persons in connection to the Dingucha incident. Both Dingucha and Chhatral are located in Gandhinagar district and are separated by less than 15km.

On September 5, 2022, Mehsana police booked 45 persons for their alleged involvement in an illegal immigration scam where ineligible students have acquired high International English Language Testing System scores to obtain admission in Canadian colleges so that they could be smuggled into the US. Police also arrested three persons, including a student from Surat.

Police had booked a coaching class owner, chief executive officer of a private examination management and educational services company, staffers of a testing agency and 21 students.

The Gujarat police action came after reports of six persons from Gujarat who travelled to Canada on student visas being caught by US agencies on April 28, 2022. They were caught while illegally crossing over to the US when their boat capsized in St Regis. They were rescued by US and Canadian authorities.

Four of the six persons arrested by US border customs – Nil Patel, Dhruv Patel, Urvish Patel and Savan Patel – were from different parts of Mehsana district in Gujarat. The other two were from Gandhinagar and Patan.

When they were produced before a court in the US, they were barely able to speak or write in English and needed a translator despite having cleared IELTS exam with high scores, according to a first information report filed by Mehsana police.

IELTS is an international standardised test of English language proficiency for non-native English speakers, with a good score being necessary for admission in reputed colleges in several countries.

The lure for better job opportunities overseas has been driving people of Gujarat to foreign lands by using illegal routes for many years now. There would be scores of people in the entire stretch from Kadi, Kalol and up to Mehsana who have gone to the US and other European countries taking the illegal route, a police officer said, declining to be named.

The agents extorted anywhere between ₹60 lakh to ₹1 crore from the aspiring illegal immigrants and used a two-step approach for sending people to Europe and the US using Mexico and other routes, officials said.

With Thanks Referenc to: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/gujarat-family-of-four-among-8-dead-trying-to-enter-us-illegally-from-canada-by-boat-highlighting-growing-issue-of-illegal-immigration-scams-101680460728396.html