Monday, August 16,
1999 China warned Canada about alien
smuggling Leaked document: Beijing blamed
'weakness' of Ottawa's refugee screening
Diane Francis National
Post
Chinese officials warned Canada in June that smuggling of illegal
aliens to Canada would increase because of our refugee policies,
according to an internal Immigration Department report leaked to the
National Post.
''The weakness and arbitrariness of refugee determination systems
in foreign countries was a reason cited throughout this visit by
officials from every department [in China] as being a major pull
factor for illegal migration,'' the report warned.
''The message was clear in several meetings: You expect us to try
to hold the lid on the boiling pot of illegal migrants, while your
refugee, welfare and legal systems continue to put more kindling on
the fire.''
Several high-level meetings were held between three Canadian
diplomats and officials in China's Fujian province, where most of
the smuggling takes place. Its population is roughly the size of
Canada's -- 33 million -- and there are 3,300 kilometres of
shoreline.
''Li [Qing Zhou, the Fujian vice-governor], assured us that the
Fujianese are trying very hard to contain illegal migration, and
have halted 10,000 would-be illegal migrants since 1989 and caught
300 persons involved in organizing smuggling in 1998 alone,'' the
report notes.
The migrants are said to be mostly uneducated people from rural
areas who are told they can get rich in America. They are not
refugees as defined by the United Nations, the vice-governor said.
''Li stated forthrightly that persons from the above mentioned
communities [in Fujian province] who claimed refugee status based on
political reasons were not being truthful. He stated that persons
with their level of education would not be comfortable with, nor
would they likely be involved in, the political process in Fujian.
He stated that any number of reasons may be given to the smugglees
by their snakeheads [Chinese gang smugglers], but the reasons [and
stories] were paper-thin.
''Li stated that regardless of the reason cited, the vast
majority of persons are leaving Fujian in search of economic
benefit. Regardless of the fact that the economy in Fujian is
developing rapidly, it is still possible to make multiples of one's
current wages in China by doing unskilled labour jobs [abroad].
Li stated that smugglers were very conversant with the
refugee-determination systems of many countries, and assure their
clients that they may often work legally even before their refugee
determination is complete. They also understand that even should
their refugee application fail, there is still a strong possibility
that they may eventually become residents of the host nation and
eventually bring the entire family legally and almost free abroad.
It is common knowledge that smugglers are guaranteeing success and
are sending persons a number of times and through different routings
if they are caught initially. Li stated that he had heard of persons
being caught up to seven times in attempts to exit China illegally.
Li and others who met with the Canadian contingent said they were
under pressure from Beijing to stem the flow of illegals and, as a
result, they were upset with the Canadian policies and upset with
the exploitation of innocent Chinese who do not realize that they
will not improve their lives this way.
''Ominously, the PSB [Public Security Bureau] stated that unless
efforts were made to organize a plan to reduce Canada's
attractiveness to Fujianese, we may see a rapid increase in the
movement of Fujianese destined to Canada. In support of this
statement, the Fujianese cited the American example of Guam: In
1998, about 100 persons went by boat to Guam and were not sent back,
and the estimate to date in 1999 is that 700 persons have taken this
routing,'' the report reads.
When told that a steady rise was experienced in Canada over the
past few years, the PSB responded that this is likely because of the
liberal image of Canada's refugee-determination system.
Chinese officials told the Canadians that the majority of the
2,000 Chinese refugees who arrived last year alone in Canada were
from Fujian province, mostly from a county called Changle.
''It was acknowledged that wanted criminals may seek to illegally
depart China to evade prosecution,'' concluded the report.
''[Canadian consul-general in Guangjong, Paul] Lau, raised the
concern that together with smuggling comes an increase in crime,''
the report said.
''It was noted that this rise is likely tied to smuggling and the
very real possibility that people are driven into crime by the
snakeheads or out of desperation in an attempt to pay back their
crushing debt to their alien smuggler was discussed. The PSB noted
that smugglers were often, if not always, members of criminal
organizations and were making massive profits. These profits are not
generally limited to the original price for the smuggling itself. As
an example, if the venture is priced at $40,000 (US), often only a
small fraction ($1,000 to $2,000) was paid in advance. The rest of
the money would be 'loaned' to the smugglees by the snakeheads and
would bear onerous interest rates in the neighbourhood of 30%. The
smugglee would then be forced to come up with the balance by a form
of indentured servitude to the smugglers, and work off their debt in
extremely low paying jobs with harsh conditions. The most common are
likely in restaurants or manual labour for men, piecework garment
manufacture or prostitution for women. Crime may well be resorted to
out of fear of falling behind in payments as, according to one PSB
officer, the snakeheads can reach the families in Fujian 'whenever
they want.' ''
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.
See related stories "Few of boat people make claims for
asylum" by Stewart Bell and "Illegals used as cheap labour" by
Adrienne Tanner on page A6. |