Frigid conditions leave people sneaking into U.S. nowhere to hide, border agent warns

For some migrants desperate enough to walk through howling winter winds to enter the United States, a light in the sky was their beacon of hope.

The light shining from an unmanned gas plant just inside the American side of the border, near St. Vincent, Minn., was perhaps the only reference point for a group of undocumented migrants walking into the United States last week, a U.S. border agent suggests. 

"You can see for miles and miles right now, but in the night you can't," said Kathryn Siemer, deputy patrol agent leading the station in nearby Pembina, N.D.

She said the gas plant — a visible marker, no matter the time of day — is sometimes a destination for people illegally sneaking into the United States from Manitoba.

It's also where seven undocumented Indian nationals were allegedly set to meet — and a man reportedly waited for them in a rented vehicle — before being apprehended by U.S. border patrol agents on the morning of Jan. 19. Justice officials believe they've dealt a blow to an organized human smuggling operation. Steve Shand of Florida has been charged in relation to the incident.

One of the captured migrants said they'd been walking for 11.5 hours in the cold, which means only a smattering of lights were guiding them through the nighttime.

That same person said they got separated from a family of four the night before.

The Patel family — a mother, father, 11-year-old girl and three-year-old boy — froze to death just steps from the U.S. border, and roughly a kilometre northeast of the gas plant.

The temperature felt like –35, with fierce winds producing whiteout conditions. The family fell victim to the frigid conditions, the autopsy confirmed.

As this frozen trek demonstrates, the winter here is unforgiving. The border patrol agents who secure this flat, barren landscape understand that better than most.

"Unless you see it, it's hard to envision just the stark vastness that is out here," Siemer said, standing amid what seems like endless fields covered in snow.

"You have to describe it as just miles and miles of farmland where there's not a lot of infrastructure, there's not a lot of population and that's what you're patrolling," Siemer said.

"These roads aren't paved. They're just county-maintained roads. Sometimes they're blown over by the snow and sometimes they're accessible. The road access is sometimes hit or miss."

WATCH | Border patrol agents underscore the dangers in the winter: