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August 13, 1999
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Officials round up Chinese migrants

Mystery ship crew faces charges under Immigration Act

By Daniel Girard
Toronto Star Western Canada Bureau

VANCOUVER - Immigration officials will today begin piecing together the stories of about 130 Chinese men, women and children dumped into frigid water off Canada's West Coast in an apparent human smuggling operation.

``We don't know a great deal about who they are and where they're headed and what they want,'' said George Varnai, a spokesperson with Citizenship and Immigration Canada.


  • Process under attack
  • The Star's view

  • The migrants were to conclude their long voyage across the Pacific Ocean sometime this morning by arriving aboard school buses after a 10-hour ride down Vancouver Island to Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt, where they will be detained for interviews by federal officials.

    Their arrival at the suburban Victoria base was the culmination of another dramatic day in what is being treated as the second shipload of smuggled Chinese migrants found off the B.C. coast in less than a month.

    Other developments yesterday included:

  • Coast Guard search-and-rescue crews found four more men from the unmarked ship in the forest on Kunghit Island, the remote and rugged area of the Queen Charlotte Islands where the migrants were made to swim ashore in lifejackets.

    Officials said the four appeared to be looking for a highway. They were cold and hungry but uninjured, and are bound for CFB Esquimalt.

  • A man who had been airlifted to hospital in Queen Charlotte City for treatment of severe hypothermia was released and taken to join other migrants at the navy base.

  • RCMP said the ship's eight-member Korean crew, who tried to flee authorities after dumping their human cargo, will face Immigration Act charges of aiding and abetting a party of 10 or more to illegally enter the country and causing a person to disembark at sea. Maximum penalties are a $500,000 fine and 10 years in jail.

  • A few hundred residents came to the government dock in Port Hardy on northern Vancouver Island to gawk as the migrants and crew arrived after a 10-hour trip aboard Coast Guard and RCMP ships from the Queen Charlottes. One person played O Canada on a trumpet while others held signs reading ``Feed our people first'' and ``Save Canadians first.''

  • Television station BCTV quoted sources as saying the defence department is tracking another ship suspected to be smuggling migrants. But Varnai said immigration officials were not aware of another vessel headed toward Canada.

    None of the latest arrivals, who include about 20 children believed to be under the age of five, have claimed refugee status, Varnai said. But each, including the crew members, is entitled to seek it, he said.

    But if people are convicted of crimes, Canada typically moves quickly to deport them, Varnai said, referring to the charges expected against the Koreans. It's unclear if the crew is from North or South Korea.

    All 123 people aboard the filthy, listing ship seized off northern Vancouver Island on July 20 are seeking refugee status.

    A total of 37 of them remain in custody in Vancouver and some may face charges of human smuggling.

    Some of the other people off that vessel, who have been released into the community and are receiving social assistance while they await refugee hearings, have said they paid - or pledged - up to $38,000 (U.S.) for the 39-day voyage from Fujian province in southern China.

    The latest batch of migrants are believed to be from the same province.

    But the children and about 40 women make this ship different.

    Varnai defended the fact that the migrants ended up being dumped into the water, had to swim a short distance to shore and wait for rescue crews even though federal officials had been monitoring the ship's every move for 48 hours.

    And, he added, the difficult surroundings made it hard to find the four men not picked up until yesterday.

    ``It wasn't safe to board the vessel because of oceanic and weather conditions,'' Varnai said. "Search and rescue in very difficult terrain is not easy."

    Federal officials are now confident everyone from the ship has now been picked up, Varnai said.

    Military personnel spent yesterday doing some ``minor tweaking'' to the gymnasium compound at CFB Esquimalt that was converted for the previous boatload of migrants, said Lt.-Cmdr. Chris Henderson of Maritime Forces Pacific.

    Four trailers were added for office and interviewing space for immigration officials and adjustments were made to X-ray machines so that children could also be checked for tuberculosis, he said.

    An additional secured area was built within the compound to give the detainees more room for exercise and fresh air, Henderson said.

    A collection of portable toilets that were added during the stay by the previous boatload were moved to a different area away from surrounding homes, he said.

    ``We're trying to do everything we can to mitigate the noise and the inconvenience,'' Henderson said in an interview from Victoria.

    The last of the first set of migrants left the gymnasium compound last week.

    But as CFB Esquimalt prepares to welcome a second boatload of migrants, Vancouver's Chinese community is grumbling.

    Many Chinese in Vancouver who went through the long, costly process to get themselves or family members here legally are angry that those arriving by boat without documentation get ahead quicker, said Mason Loh, a lawyer and local community activist.

    ``There's a lot of resentment, not necessarily just against the claimants but also against the system,'' Loh said.



    With files from Canadian Press

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