The conflict in Ukraine has also highlighted the crisis of displaced
people globally who are seeking safe haven now numbered at 82 million,
according to the United Nations refugee agency. Much of the focus
in the U. S has been on immigration enforcement along the southern
border.
The Northern frontier with Canada, while much longer has generally
seen less activity, But officials fear that could change. Fred to
San Lazzaro recently visited the frozen frontier between Minnesota
and Manitoba.
It could pass for a few out an airplane window up in the clouds.
In fact, it's a drive thru Minnesota's far north.
The terrain of Border Patrol agent Michael Johnson. Technically,
if you were to
Turning straddle this You'd be in two countries at once. I would
if I wasn't stuck in about that's right Snow right here, So it's
not something that's an easy traversable.
Path.
This Grand Forks sector covers about 1/5 of the nearly 4000 Miles
Continental U. S border with Canada. Substantial parts of it are
thickly forested.
Take your seat belts while we're all nice or aquatic like the vast
lake of the woods that we drove on frozen solid during winter months.
But out there, you see the horizon. There's just like those black
wines, that's all fish houses.
Fish houses dot the lake in winter. This border area draws thousands
of outdoor enthusiasts year round.
Many incursions. You are just people unwittingly crossing a border
that's not well defined, but agents must remain alert.
Did someone intentionally come across the border? Are they trying
to smuggle somebody, or they trying to smuggle something across the
border? Is it a terrorism type piece? Right, So there's a vast area.
You know, weird sort of way psychologically.
This would be a tempting target because it's so vast, absolutely
in 2021, agents of the Grand Forks sector made 85 apprehensions compared
to 217 and 2020.
But dropped attributed to pandemic travel restrictions. Just how
many people cross undetected is hard to know, the patrol says.
And it's when conditions are especially harsh when blowing snow makes
it impossible to see anything just a few feet away.
That's just when human smugglers see opportunity, says supervising
Border Patrol agent Catherine Simmer, So they will do it at the worst
times possible thinking that we won't be out there patrolling.
Which was a plausible thing on January. Name. Absolutely.
On the morning of January. 19th Simmer, Heard of faithful radio call.
One of our agents had encountered.
A van.
And then area that we knew had some potential traffic going on that
it was nationalized US citizen with two
Migrants from the country of India in the vehicle with him.
We're about a half mile away from the border, and so everything kind
of happened within this half mile. They arrested the driver, Florida
resident Steve Shand, and soon thereafter. Five more migrants from
India.
Walking down this road, all of them adults. One of my agents opened
up one of the backpacks and in that backpack were clothing for a
toddler
along with the diaper.
And some medicine for obviously for a child that triggered a ground
and air search for other migrants by U. S. And Canadian authorities
were now in a position to confirm the identities of the victims.
They're all from the same family and are all Indian nationals.
Jagdish Inv. Actually Patel, their 11 year old daughter and three
year old son died from exposure. They were separated from the group
in blizzard conditions and temperatures that hovered near 30 below
zero.
There's really nothing out there. There's no cell phone signal to
call for help. Scott Good is the Grand Forks Patrol chief smugglers
do not care about human life.
They only care about money. So when somebody comes up and tells you
Hey, I can I can get you into the U s or or wherever you're going,
and it's only going to cost this much. The real cost is your life.
That's really what's on the line. Few people know the cartel family's
journey more than these men. What pains me most.
The two kids, baby and little Levin years old kids, they're innocent.
I didn't know what is going on.
Seydou Mohammed and Roszak. Y'all crossed the border in the opposite
direction toward Canada, the two Ghanaians who had met by chance
in Minnesota, where worried they'd be deported after Donald Trump
was elected.
Late on Christmas Eve in 2016. They were dropped off near the border
with neither guidance nor cold weather gear. There's no also was
beyond our ways. We have to put our bare hands and there's no and
lift our feet.
He took Astoria was together from that field.
The two stumbled onto a highway and we're able to wave down a truck.
Before we we saw the truck driver remember?
I start telling Sadie I can't feel my fingers and he say
I can't feel my fingers.
And I said, Well, you can't feel your fingers, too. But once inside
the truck, they had a more pressing question. The first thing I asked
him
Are we in Canada and you say, Yeah, this is Canada goal achieved
at a catastrophic price. With the exception of ers right thumb. They
lost all their fingers.
Distribute have happened.
But because of that agreement, that's why you see as sneaking in
Under an agreement between Canada and the US anyone fleeing their
country and applying for asylum must make that claim in the first
country where they enter
In other words, If you land in the US, then go to Canadian border
post to apply for asylum will be sent back to the US and vice versa.
But there's a big loophole. The rule does not apply to people who
simply walk in sneak in between official border checkpoints.
You are encouraging people to travel irregularly.
University of Winnipeg Law professor Shauna Leibman says Canada sought
the 2000 and four packed, hoping to slow the number of asylum seekers
coming in while the US saw it as a way to improve border security
that was known before this agreement came into force that it might
create incentives for human smuggling.
And that it might also create a backlash against refugees because
there seemed to be crossing a regularly Seydou Mohammed and Roszak.
L did get asylum in Canada device.
They've had to relearn life's most mundane tasks as they build a
new life. He saw what you but their ordeal or the Patels is not likely
to deter would be migrants for long.
Many have strong diaspora ties in North America, says Theresa Cardinal
Brown with the bipartisan policy center. They're listening to their
family and their friends who are on Facebook or WhatsApp, or, you
know, telling them. Hey, I made it last month and I'm working now,
and my kids are in school, and then they're going to want to join
those family members of those that community there are more people
dislocated from their place of home of birth than ever before in
history.
All this, she says, helps criminal smuggling networks thrive for
the PBS news hour. I'm Fred de Sam Lazarow at the U. S. Canadian
border near War Road, Minnesota.