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Chasing Smugglers
Cargo container
Authorities Crack Down on Chinese Immigrant Smuggling Ring




An Immigration and Naturalization Service agent goes through a cargo container in Long Beach, Calif., in which 21 Chinese nationals were discovered trying to illegally enter the country.
(INS/AP Photo)


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
ALT TAG
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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