AHMEDABAD: More than two years after Dingucha lost four of its own while they were trying to cross the border into the US from Canada, illegal migration from this village in Gandhinagar district shows no signs of abating. Despite the chilling reminder of the 2022 tragedy, where a couple and their two children froze to death attempting to enter the US on foot, over 800 villagers have made the same perilous journey in the past three years. With a population of about 6,500, Dingucha today has fewer than 1,800 actual residents. The rest are now reportedly living in the US, Canada, or Australia.A former talati (village revenue official) recalled the obsession: “Residents of Dingucha and the nearby villages will go to any length to shift to the US. When I was posted in the region, I saw people spending crores to shift to the US by hook or crook. Some of them, including Jagdish Patel and his family died due to the extreme cold weather during their illegal journey, but this has failed to deter the others who dream of settling in the US.“Jagdish Patel, 39, and Vaishali Patel, 37, were found dead along with their daughter Vihangi, 11 and son Dharmik, 3, in a field in the border town of Emerson, Manitoba, just a few metres from the US border, on Jan 19, 2022. They had entered Canada on a tourist on a tourist visa. The family reportedly had got separated from the group, who were trying to cross into the US on foot and had trudged through waist-deep snow for more than 11 hours in -35°C before they froze to death.A relative of the Patels, who crossed into the US by the same route in Dec 2023, said one person from the village migrates almost every day. “When I crossed over, I was part of a group of 15,” he said.A village resident added, “At least 800 people moved to the US in the past three years. We know this because these people who voted around three years ago were not present for the last election.”A Gandhinagar police officer said that the human smuggling network functions with a web of agents across Gujarat, Delhi and Punjab in India, the US, Canada and Mexico abroad. On Thursday, Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel alias ‘Dirty Harry’ was sentenced to 10 years in a US federal prison for orchestrating the smuggling route that led to the Patels’ death.