By Jonathan
Dube
ABCNEWS.com
S E A T T L E, Jan. 12 — Federal authorities are stepping up efforts to prevent Chinese
smugglers from sneaking illegal immigrants into the United States and have
caught more than 100 stowaways in the past two weeks.
For years Chinese smugglers, known as
“snakeheads,” used retrofitted fishing vessels to transport shiploads of
illegal immigrants across the Pacific. But when U.S. and Canadian
authorities increasingly began intercepting the ships, the smugglers
changed tactics.
Now the snakeheads hide
Chinese nationals aboard the hundreds of container vessels that travel to
the West Coast every day, cramming the people inside 40-foot metal boxes
for the two-week journey. The stowaways live off bottled water and rotting
vegetables, use buckets as toilets, and breathe air through holes cut in
canvas roofs.
And they pay the smugglers as
much as $50,000, which the stowaways then work off in sweatshops after
arriving.
Chasing the
Smugglers
Ventilation holes cut in the canvas are shown on top of a
cargo container where 21 illegal Chinese nationals stowed away from
Hong Kong. (INS/AP
Photo)
| U.S. authorities first
discovered the new smuggling method in February 1999, when 11 stowaways
were caught on a container vessel unloading in Long Beach, Calif.
Since then, immigration officials have been
working with the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs, Canadian officials and
Hong Kong police to head off the smuggling. More than 100 were caught
aboard six vessels landing in 1999 in Long Beach, Tacoma, Wash., and
Vancouver, British Columbia.
Authorities have
had even more success in the new year. Last week officials caught 69
stowaways on container vessels docking in Seattle, Long Beach and
Vancouver. And this Monday and Tuesday 37 more were found on boats
unloading in Seattle — including three who had died.
The dead stowaways prompted the FBI on
Tuesday to launch its own investigation into the smuggling ring, which
officials describe as a sophisticated network of operatives based in China
and the United States.
Officials Get
Tipped-Off
David Bachman, chair of the University of
Washington’s China studies program, says the increased number of stowaways
being caught doesn’t mean that more are being smuggled in, but rather that
law enforcement is being more successful at catching them.
“There’s been a fairly steady flow of these
illegal migrants from China to the West,” Bachman says. “I think that
somehow somebody’s law enforcement officials have penetrated the gangs and
are providing tip-offs. Whether it’s Hong Kong, American or Canadian
immigration or customs officials, I don’t know.”
Indeed, immigration officials have been
getting tips from someone in Hong Kong about which boats are carrying
stowaways, and were waiting at the pier Monday night when the Cape May
arrived in Seattle with 18 aboard.
So
Kam-shing, principal secretary for security in Hong Kong, says Hong Kong
police have increased their exchange of intelligence with mainland Chinese
officials and are working closer with shipping companies. Hong Kong has
also sent several police officers to Seattle to help investigate.
“We’re all working together to try to uncover
the smuggling rings as best we can,” says Irene Mortensen, spokesperson
for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Seattle. “We feel that
it probably does go on much more than we know about.”
Three Chinese nationals, believed to be
smugglers, were arrested last week when they were spotted waiting for one
of the stowaway-carrying vessels to dock in Seattle. They are scheduled to
have a preliminary hearing in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Friday,
but to date they have only been charged with illegally entering the
country.
‘A Better Way of
Life’
Most of the stowaways come from Fujian, a coastal
region of China whose people have a history of migrating overseas. The
snakeheads approach impoverished farmers and other lower-middle-class
working people and offer to take them to the “Land of Opportunity.” In
exchange, the stowaways agree to work off their debt, often in sweatshops
in New York City.
Dan Danilov, a Seattle
immigration attorney who is representing some of the stowaways, says it
may be hard for Americans to understand why the stowaways would risk their
lives crossing the Pacific just to work in sweatshops, but to the Chinese,
the risk is worth taking. Even the poor conditions of the sweatshops, he
says, are likely better than their living conditions in China.
“They are all looking for a better way of
life,” Danilov says. “And indeed, they do find a better way of life in
America. Whatever they get paid is still better than what they get paid in
China. It must be or else they wouldn’t come.” 
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