February 27, 2000
Illegal Immigrants Find Danger and Appeal in Northern Route
By ROBYN MEREDITH
ARSENS
ISLAND, Mich., Feb. 23 -- In the winter, the frozen river here creaks
and moans as if lost souls were being swept along by the relentless
current underneath the ice. It is this unlikely spot, where the St.
Clair River separates this rural Michigan region from Canada, that has
lately become a passageway for illegal immigrants.
Those who walk across at night, with Indian guides tapping a steel
pole on the sparkling, groaning ice, are usually relieved to hit solid
land. The most recent immigrant caught here was a Tunisian man who
walked across one night this month. "He was telling me he was scared
to death and the ice was cracking around him and he didn't know if he
was going to make it to the other side," said Richard H. Nemitz, the
agent in charge of the United States Border Patrol station in nearby
Marysville, Mich., who questioned the Tunisian. The two Indian guides
tried to reassure him.
"They said it is no problem if you drink," Mr. Nemitz said. "But he
was a Muslim, so he didn't want to drink."
In the past year, illegal immigration in this region "has gone from
nothing or close to nothing detected to 100 people," said Mark W.
Osler, Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of
Michigan. "You'd have to assume the majority of them we don't catch,"
he said, but just since December, a Detroit grand jury has indicted 15
people on charges related to smuggling.
Illegal immigration is picking up here because of an unusual
cross-cultural criminal alliance. According to federal court papers
filed in Detroit, a ring of Canadian Indians from Walpole Island, just
across the river from here, have linked up with Chinese smugglers to
bring Asian immigrants into this rural region 35 miles northeast of
Detroit. Others cross here, too. -- a man from the Bahamas walked
across the ice on Jan. 25, for instance -- but most of the illegal
immigrants caught here are Chinese or Korean.
They come by boat in warmer weather or on foot on the coldest
nights. Others run through a train tunnel that goes under the river
and surfaces in Port Huron, Mich., 20 miles up the coast from here.
The Border Patrol has caught 22 people since the beginning of
December, and Immigration and Naturalization Service officials in the
Detroit office have caught an additional 20, said Brian G. Slonac,
supervisory special agent in charge of the Detroit antismuggling unit.
Since early January, Canadian authorities have caught 19 Chinese on
their way to the United States, including 10 teenage girls in a van
headed for Walpole Island.
By the time the immigrants arrive here, they have neared the end of
what can be a grueling journey. Most are on their way to New York, by
way of Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver and then Michigan. About 80
percent of those caught were Chinese from the Fujian province in
southeastern China, across from Taiwan.
Most have bought fake passports and fly into Canada.
But some of those caught told of their wretched journeys by
freighter from China to the coast of British Columbia, according to
documents filed in the December indictment. They were locked in dark
ship compartments so small there was no room to lie down during the
monthlong journey.
None of the immigrants are now in custody, and the Border Patrol
would not release their names.
Most immigrants agreed to pay smugglers $20,000 to $50,000 to get
from their home countries to New York City. The going price for river
crossings here was $1,000 to $1,500. Most pay for the passage by
pledging to work in low-paying jobs in the United States, Mr. Slonac
said.
Many get through. The local border patrol office, with four
officers patrolling roughly 140 miles of the United States-Canada
coastline, has been struggling to keep up with the flow. Even if they
catch illegal immigrants, the border patrol office here has no budget
to put them in jail. So they are let go, with orders to appear at a
hearing. Most do not show up. The immigration office in Detroit
typically releases illegal immigrants on a $5,000 bond and orders them
to attend a hearing. Those who believe they have a good case for
political asylum usually attend the hearings, Mr. Slonac said.
Immigration experts said that policy is a peculiarity of the border
area here. In other parts of the country,
"What usually happens is, they are going to put you in jail if you
don't have a visa until the immigration people start the process of
deporting you,"said Liga E. Mutia, a lawyer with the Immigration
National Center, a nonprofit organization that provides legal services
to immigrants.
Even many of the smugglers that have been caught may end up getting
away. Most of those indicted are Indians from Walpole Island, a
Canadian Indian reservation, and they are not in custody. The United
States could decide to seek their extradition, but that raises
sovereignty issues in Canada, Mr. Osler said. The Canadian government
may be reluctant to get involved for fear of sparking further domestic
turmoil.
Despite the recent increase in human smuggling through this area,
many more immigrants enter at other border hot spots.
Nearly 1.6 million people were caught last fiscal year, with all
but 42,000 caught on the Mexican border.
Here on this quiet island, where visitors easily draw gossip,
longtime residents said the smuggling is not new. Lou M. Harvey, 47, a
lifelong resident who owns the Sans Souci market here, said: "I don't
think that there are any more now today than there were five years
ago." Immigrants who have been dropped off on the shore often make
their way to the pay phone outside her convenience store, calling in
vain for a taxi, since there are none on the island.
But then the river separating the United States from Canada has
been a highway for contraband for more than a century. Rumrunners used
it during prohibition to move liquor from Canada through canals in
Detroit neighborhoods into houses with secret tunnels. And people
desperate for freedom have risked their lives walking across the
frozen river in the past -- though in the reverse direction. Detroit
was a terminus on the Underground Railroad, and slaves escaping to
Canada were taken across in boats until the river froze each winter,
then braved the walk across the ice.
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