(BCTV) - They are just children, who were placed on a decrepit cargo ship and sent out onto the ocean, by families hoping they would find a better life.

And while no one denies that the Chinese migrant children who waded onto B.C. shores last month need to be cared for, the B.C. government says doing that is putting an enormous strain on an already-overburdened system.

Each child is costing taxpayers as much as 82-hundred-dollars a month. And now, the province is asking for help from Ottawa and from the Chinese community.

Catherine Pope, reporting: "Five young Chinese migrants file into an immigration hearing to determine if they will remain in detention.

The hearing lasts only a half hour, but it had to be staffed by an immigration adjudicator, a lawyer for the migrants, a lawyer for immigration and two security guards... All paid for by taxpayers.

And today for the first time, we learn how much just the migrant children are costing."

Vaughan Dowie, Ministry of Children and Families: "...by and large, cost us somewhere in the area of $8200 per month per child."

Catherine Pope, reporting: "There are 75 boat children in the care of the ministry. At a cost of 82-hundred dollars per child, the total equals 615-thousand-dollars per month - a cost that is solely being born by B.C. Although, the ministry has asked for federal assistance."

Vaughan Dowie, Ministry of Children and Families: "We're having to use more of a residential model to care for these children...We can't put them in foster care... It is most cost effective...and we have to bring in interpreters."

Catherine Pope, reporting: "The ministry says the boat children aren't compromising the care of B.C. children, because extra staff have been brought in. But some people we talked to question why the cost per child is so high.

The ministry has issued a plea for Mandarin speaking foster families to come forward.

Meanwhile, this group of migrants was ordered detained for at least another week, while officials try to confirm their identity.

BCTV news has learned that one of the young men in that group at the detention hearing is believed to have a criminal record in the United States and was once deported from there. Immigration officials say they're in the process of verifying his fingerprints with FBI records."

Anchor reads: "There are reports that the U.S. Coast Guard is assisting another ship that is believed to be carrying illegal Asian migrants, near Midway Island, about two- thousand kilometres northwest of Hawaii. The ship's crew say they've been adrift for a month and are low on food and water. There's no word as to where the ship was headed."

Mandarin speaking foster families interested in fostering a Chinese migrant youth, can contact the Ministry of Children & Families, on the toll-free "Foster Line": 1-800-663-9999.