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Thursday, January 13, 2000, 07:25 a.m. Pacific


Detention a long way from dreams of freedom for stowaways

by Joshua Robin and Susan Gilmore
Seattle Times staff reporters

The men from China had fulfilled their dream to come to the United States, traveling two weeks on rough seas in a dark, drafty, metal container on a voyage that killed three of their companions and required another four to be hospitalized.

Now, for 12 stowaways aboard the Cape May that docked on Harbor Island on Monday, the first days here are being spent in an overflowing medium-security federal-detention center near the Kingdome.

It's a place of little privacy. Cameras are on all the time. Physicals are conducted with open doors. There are no doors on the bathroom stalls, and several detainees sleep on plastic cots that don't fit them.

Reporters visited the detention center yesterday at the invitation of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

Because of the continuing INS investigation, and because of the fear of reprisals against the stowaways who likely owe tens of thousands of dollars to those who arranged their passage, reporters were not permitted to talk with the inmates, and photographers were asked to not take pictures of their faces.

Those from the Cape May, in their 20s and 30s, looked tired, withdrawn and thin, dressed in federally issued jumpsuits and flip-flops.

Some slept, even in the din of a cell where other detainees were being held. Others looked out the window or at the ceiling. Some had books stacked next to their pillows.

There are 177 beds in the facility, which is now holding 188 people, according to William Paul, the facility administrator. The 19 additional stowaways apprehended Tuesday aboard the Hanjin Yokohama, are being held at a similar facility in Kent.

Asked to describe the stowaways held in Seattle, Paul said: "They're very passive." He said they didn't seem traumatized from the journey. "I've heard of no reports of psychological problems."

Ted Love, a physician's assistant who examined some of the men, said some were bruised from the journey.

"They got pretty well botched up in that container."

The four men at Harborview Medical Center are in satisfactory condition, according to a nursing supervisor.

Paul said those in detention are being interviewed by the INS and will likely leave within two weeks. Some have asked to speak with lawyers, which are not free to detainees with immigration issues.

INS spokeswoman Irene Mortensen said it appeared most if not all of those on the Cape May - as well as the other stowaways recently apprehended in Seattle - will apply for political asylum.

While many will lose their claims, that does not mean they will be deported to China.

INS officials say many of those apprehended last year aboard container ships disappeared from its tracking.

While the INS knows who these people are, and has records of where they said they were staying while their applications were evaluated, the agency does not keep track of 75 percent of them, according to Don Mueller, an INS spokesman in Washington, D.C.

INS officials say most head for New York City, where jobs await them to pay off the steep passage fees.

"It's not a perfect world," Mueller said. "We lose a lot of them."



Copyright © 2000 The Seattle Times Company


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