Friday, August 13,
1999 Poor take rusty boat, while the
wealthy fly
How smugglers get illegal
migrants into Canada
Marina Jimenez
National
Post
 Chuck Stoody, The Canadian
Press
Immigration officials escort
crew members from the Korean vessel at Port Hardy, B.C.,
yesterday.
| Planes, boats
or automobiles?
Wealthy Chinese migrants looking for an illegal way into Canada
do not get on rusted fishing boats -- they buy false visitor's
visas, and climb on board commercial aircraft.
"Taking the plane is the rich man's way. The boat is mostly for
poor peasants with an incredibly romantic notion that North America
is the Golden Mountain," said James Dubro, who travelled to Fujian
province in southeastern China to research Dragons of Crime, a book
on human smuggling and the international gangs who control it.
While the sea-borne arrival of Canada's most recent boatload of
Chinese migrants has inspired criticism of Canada's apparently
lenient immigration laws, the vast majority of those seeking refugee
status do not wash up on Canadian shores. They fly in or arrive by
crossing the U.S. border by land.
The 130 Chinese men, women and children dumped Wednesday morning
50 metres from the rocky shores of Kunghit Island, the southernmost
of the remote Queen Charlotte Islands, likely could not afford to
pay for a $2,000 commercial flight and arrange for travel documents,
so they made the journey on the Hueg Ryong Pusan No. 705, a Korean
driftnet ship.
Most of the undocumented passengers who make refugee claims in
Canada come in by air or across the U.S. border, say immigration and
customs authorities.
"Our numbers at Pearson airport are significantly higher than
those arriving by boat," said Dave Cumming, program manager of
Citizenship and Immigration at Pearson International Airport in
Toronto.
"Immigration control officers work with airlines around the world
trying to prevent undocumented people from getting on planes."
China has launched a crackdown on "snakeheads" or smugglers, but
in Fujian province, smugglers still flaunt their services for a
trans-Pacific journey by air or sea.
"Smugglers in Fujian province are all over the place. If you want
to buy phony passports and visas, it's all pretty open," said Mr.
Dubro.
Flying to Canada takes no more than a day, and involves almost no
risk or discomfort. Many take circuitous routes, flying to Canada
via Europe, South Africa or South America. They may be accompanied
by a runner or courier, who collects their counterfeit passport and
visas before they land.
Sea-faring passengers face 40-day journeys on rough seas, often
crammed into the hold of decrepit vessels. But they can arrive en
masse, without having to purchase counterfeit identification.
Passengers are usually picked up in Fujian province, and then
transported by boat to a larger vessel. In some cases, smugglers
confiscate the identification of their human cargo at the beginning
of the journey.
The smugglers are well-organized, with links to corrupt local
government officials in China and gang members in Canada, Hong Kong,
Taiwan, and the United States. The Koreans arrested this week are
believed to have been hired by a bigger smuggling ring to carry out
the journey across the Pacific.
Ship passengers may pay $10,000 as a down payment, with the
understanding that they will work in sweatshops, restaurants and in
prostitution in Canada or the U.S. to pay off their debt. Those
navigating the ships are usually lower-level gang members, and may
be poor seamen.
Although many more people may be smuggled into Canada via air,
summer is definitely migrant season on the sea.
"The summer is the ideal time for these rusty hulls to
successfully make a trans-Pacific voyage," said Major Jim Benninger,
operations officer with the Canadian Air Force's Squadron 407, which
first spotted the Korean vessel.
B.C.'s long, craggy coastline with its many small inlets is
difficult to patrol. Coast Guard vessels and long-range Aurora
military aircraft patrol waters the size of B.C., Alberta and
Saskatchewan. On any given day 600 ships are on the ocean, including
cruise ships, fishing trawlers, pleasure boats and war ships. The
Auroras visually inspect the ocean beneath them, while sonars on the
sea bed can also covertly track ships.
"It's a huge, huge task," said Gerry Pash, public affairs officer
with CFB's Maritime Pacific headquarters in Esquimalt. "We've
changed the nature of our maritime patrols as a result of migrant
ships and are now watching the great circle routes from Asia to the
west coast."
There is also a "coastal watch" program similar to a
"neighbourhood watch" involving communities on the west coast of
B.C., Vancouver Island, the Queen Charlotte Islands as well as
fishing lodges that anchor in remote areas. They report suspicious
boats and activities to Esquimalt's Maritime Pacific headquarters.
"You've really got to catch these guys when they're in open
water. Once they're ashore, they are harder to detect," said Maj.
Benninger. "We expect there to be more of these migrant ships until
the weather turns sour."
RELATED SITES:
(Each link opens a new window)
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
The brand-new white paper on immigration policy
Statistics Canada: Immigration and
Citizenship
Statistics from the 1996 national census that look at where
Canadians came from.
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