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