Latest news with #borderCrossing
LBCI
07-07-2025
- Politics
- LBCI
Israeli incursion reported near Aita al-Shaab shortly after midnight, state media says
An Israeli force crossed the border shortly after midnight from the Khallet Warde area and advanced toward the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency. The force reportedly advanced toward the outskirts of the southern Lebanese town and took up positions in the area.
National Post
02-07-2025
- National Post
Canada-U.S. citizen in custody in deadly St. Lawrence River human smuggling case
A dual Canadian-American citizen that United States authorities allege was part of a deadly human smuggling operation that left migrants drowned in the St. Lawrence River will remain in custody following a detention hearing in the Northern District of New York District Court on Tuesday. Article content The U.S. Justice Department said 34-year-old Timothy Oakes was arrested as he attempted to enter the United States on June 15. Article content Article content Article content Oakes, who is from Akwesasne which straddles the Canada-U.S. border west of Montreal, was indicted in April for conspiring with others to smuggle people from Canada into the United States, as well as four counts of alien smuggling for profit and four counts of alien smuggling resulting in death. Article content Article content The family, which were not named in the U.S. court documents, have been identified as Florin Iordache, his wife Cristina (Monalisa) Zenaida Iordache, their two-year-old daughter Evelin and one-year-old son Elyen. 'This case shows the terrible perils of illegally crossing the border,' U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York John A. Sarcone III said in a news release Tuesday. 'Four family members died because a smuggling network put them in harm's way.' Article content Court documents allege that Oakes routinely smuggled people into the United States by boat across the St. Lawrence River. Documents said he was paid $1,000 per person. Article content Article content Court documents said Oakes housed the Romanian family for about 24 hours in March 2023 before transporting them along with a boat to a public launch site. His brother, Casey Oakes, was piloting the boat intending to reach northern New York. Article content Article content The boat ultimately capsized, killing all four members of the migrant family and Oakes' brother. Article content A family of four from India were also on the boat and drowned but the U.S. indictment against Oakes does not include their deaths.
CBC
26-06-2025
- Politics
- CBC
What this U.S. politician wants Canadian tourists to know
Maine's governor is wrapping up a tour of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Janet Mills is hoping to address the steep decline in the number of Canadian tourists crossing the border to visit her state during U.S. President Donald Trump's second term. She spoke with the CBC's Amy Smith.
CBC
04-06-2025
- General
- CBC
Man convicted of human smuggling after family froze to death at Manitoba border files notice of appeal
Social Sharing One of two men convicted of human smuggling following a trial last year has filed a notice of appeal, in a case where a family of four from India froze to death as they tried to walk across the international border from Manitoba in blizzard conditions in 2022. A lawyer for Steve Shand filed the notice in United States District Court in the District of Minnesota on Wednesday. The notice said Shand plans to appeal both his conviction and sentence, and that he intends to challenge the application of sentencing guidelines in the case. Last week, Shand and co-accused Harshkumar Patel were sentenced in a Minnesota courtroom to lengthy prison terms for their roles in carrying out a scheme to bring Indian migrants into the U.S. from Canada. Patel, an Indian national arrested in Chicago last year, was sentenced to just over 10 years in prison for co-ordinating the smuggling operation and hiring Shand, a Florida resident, to drive the migrants once they walked over the border into the U.S. Shand was arrested near the border the night the family died. He was found, along with other Indian nationals, in a van stuck in the snow on the Minnesota side of the border that night. Last week, he was handed a sentence of six and a half years in prison to be followed by a period of supervised release. The two men were tried and convicted in the federal courthouse in Fergus Falls, Minn., last November, after a jury deliberated for less than 90 minutes before returning with guilty verdicts on all four charges each of the men faced related to bringing unauthorized people into the U.S., transporting them and profiting from it. Shand's notice of appeal comes more than three years after four members of the Patel family (who were not related to Harshkumar Patel) died while trying to walk across the border. The frozen bodies of 39-year-old Jagdish Patel, his 37-year-old wife, Vaishali, their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi and Dharmik, their three-year-old son, were found in a snow-drifted Manitoba field about 12 metres from the U.S. border on Jan. 19, 2022. The temperature that day was –23 C, but the wind chill made it feel like the –35 to –38 range. While no notice of appeal appears to have been filed yet for Harshkumar Patel, his lawyer said following his May 28 sentencing that he did plan to file an appeal in the case. U.S. federal prosecutors had recommended sentences of nearly 20 years for Patel, and nearly 11 years for Shand. Meanwhile, both men's lawyers asked for lower sentences than what prosecutors were seeking. Patel's lawyers argued at trial he was wrongfully accused in the case, while Shand's described their client as an unsuspecting cab driver duped by Patel into shuttling migrants into the U.S. after they walked across the international border illegally. Court heard Patel, who appeared at his sentencing in an orange uniform and handcuffed, is likely to be deported to his native India after completing his sentence. Shand left the courthouse with his lawyers, and was to be taken into custody at a later date. In April, a judge rejected requests to acquit or order new trials for the men, whose lawyers had argued the evidence against their clients was insufficient. To date, no one in Canada is facing charges in the case. RCMP previously said the investigation was ongoing, and did not respond to a request for an update last week.
CNN
30-05-2025
- General
- CNN
Convicted head of human smuggling plot gets 10 years after Indian family dies on US-Canada border
FacebookTweetLink Follow More than three years after a family of four from India froze to death while trying to enter the U.S. along a remote stretch of the Canadian border in a blizzard, the alleged ringleader of an international human smuggling plot was sentenced in Minnesota on Wednesday to 10 years in prison. Federal prosecutors had recommended nearly 20 years for Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, and nearly 11 years for the driver who was supposed to pick them up, Steve Anthony Shand. Shand also was to be sentenced Wednesday. The two men appeared before U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, who declined last month to set aside the guilty verdicts, writing, 'This was not a close case.' The judge handed down the sentences at the federal courthouse in the northwestern Minnesota city of Fergus Falls, where the two men were tried and convicted on four counts apiece last November. Prosecutors said during the trial that Patel, an Indian national who they say went by the alias 'Dirty Harry,' and Shand, a U.S. citizen from Florida, were part of a sophisticated illegal operation that brought dozens of people from India to Canada on student visas and then smuggled them across the U.S. border. They said the victims, Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife, Vaishaliben, who was in her mid-30s; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and 3-year-old son, Dharmik, froze to death. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police found their bodies just north of the border between Manitoba and Minnesota on Jan. 19, 2022. The family was from Dingucha, a village in the western Indian state of Gujarat, as was Harshkumar Patel. Patel is a common Indian surname, and the victims were not related to the defendant. The couple were schoolteachers, local news reports said. So many villagers have gone overseas in hopes of better lives — legally and otherwise — that many homes there stand vacant. The father died while trying to shield Dharmik's face from a 'blistering wind' with a frozen glove, prosecutor Michael McBride wrote. Vihangi was wearing 'ill-fitting boots and gloves.' Their mother 'died slumped against a chain-link fence she must have thought salvation lay behind,' McBride wrote. A nearby weather station recorded the wind chill that morning at -36 Fahrenheit (-38 Celsius). Seven other members of their group survived the foot crossing, but only two made it to Shand's van, which was stuck in the snow on the Minnesota side. One woman who survived had to be flown to a hospital with severe frostbite and hypothermia. Another survivor testified he had never seen snow before arriving in Canada. Their inadequate winter clothes were only what the smugglers provided, the survivor told the jury. 'Mr. Patel has never shown an ounce of remorse. Even today, he continues to deny he is the 'Dirty Harry' that worked with Mr. Shand on this smuggling venture — despite substantial evidence to the contrary and counsel for his co-defendant identifying him as such at trial,' McBride wrote. Prosecutors asked for a sentence of 19 years and 7 months for Patel, at the top end of the recommended range under federal sentencing guidelines for his actions. They asked for Shand's sentence to be 10 years and 10 months, in the middle of his separate guidelines range. 'Even as this family wandered through the blizzard at 1:00 AM, searching for Mr. Shand's van, Mr. Shand was focused on one thing, which he texted Mr. Patel: 'we not losing any money,'' McBride wrote. 'Worse, when Customs and Border Patrol arrested Mr. Shand sitting in a mostly unoccupied 15-passenger van, he denied others were out in the snow — leaving them to freeze without aid.' Patel's attorneys, who have argued that the evidence was insufficient, did request a government-paid attorney for his planned appeal. Patel has been jailed since his arrest at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago in February 2024 and claimed in the filing to have no income and no assets. Shand has been free pending sentencing. His attorney called the government's requested sentence 'unduly punitive' and requested just 27 months. The attorney, federal defender Aaron Morrison, acknowledged that Shand has 'a level of culpability' but argued that his role was limited — that he was just a taxi driver who needed money to support his wife and six children. 'Mr. Shand was on the outside of the conspiracy, he did not plan the smuggling operation, he did not have decision making authority, and he did not reap the huge financial benefits as the real conspirators did,' Morrison wrote.
