Men face prison for human smuggling after an Indian family of 4 died on the US-Canada border WSOC TV [Video]

MINNEAPOLIS — (AP) — More than three years after a family of four from India froze to death while trying to cross into the U.S. along a remote stretch of the Canadian border in a blizzard, two men face sentencing in Minnesota on Wednesday on human smuggling charges for their roles what prosecutors call an international conspiracy.

Federal prosecutors have recommended nearly 20 years in prison for the alleged ringleader, Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, and nearly 11 years for the driver who was supposed to pick the family up, Steve Anthony Shand.

The prison terms are up to U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, who declined last month to set aside the guilty verdicts, writing, “This was not a close case.”

Tunheim will hand 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.

The smuggling operation

Prosecutors said during the trial that Patel, an Indian national who …