Six people from Gujarat who were caught while crossing the Canada-US border on April 28 faced criminal charges for illegal immigration. But Gary L Favro, the judge of a district court of New York pardoned them and instructed them not to use illegal means to travel to the US.
“The human smugglers do not care about you, they care about your money only. Tell people in your home country about the difficulties you faced and urge them not to use illegal means to travel to the US. People should rather follow the legal immigration procedure to arrive in the US,” Favro told the Gujarati youths during the court hearing.
The six Gujaratis, identified as Amit Patel (22), Dhruv Patel (22), Neel Patel (19), Urvesh Patel (20), Saavan Patel (19) and Darshan Patel (21), nearly drowned in the St Regis river as they attempted an illegal entry into the US from Canada. The six had told the US cops that they were about to die when the police personnel reached there. Majority of these youths are class 12 pass while two are studying in college.
Four of them told the court they were headed to Chicago while one was headed to South Carolina and another to Georgia. All six youths pleaded guilty for attempting to enter the US illegally. The judge told the youths that they had chosen not to follow proper immigration procedure and had got caught in the hands of human smugglers and faced the dangers of coming through illegal routes.
The public prosecutor representing the US government told the court that the six youths should be spared punishment or fine as they had no prior criminal record and had not used any violent means to get into the US.
