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Thursday January 6 12:51 AM ET
VANCOUVER (CP) - Had the port in Seattle not been full, 25 Chinese migrants found hidden aboard a freight ship could have been deported to their homeland by the end of the month.
But the dock was full and the California Jupiter was waved on to Vancouver, where Canada Customs agents found the men locked inside two canvas-covered cargo containers late Monday. Now all 25, including four juveniles, are expected to make refugee claims in Canada and it could be years before their claims are fully processed.
Thirty-nine men and teens found hidden aboard two other ships that did dock in Seattle will be back in Hong Kong within a few weeks if the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service doesn't feel they have legitimate asylum claims.
And they'll be going back minus the thousands of dollars they paid to be brought to North America illegally.
"We'll talk to them first to see if they have a claim to asylum," INS spokesman Irene Mortensen said Wednesday. "If that's determined not to be valid then they would be processed for removal.
"They would be removed within probably about a couple of weeks."
Reform justice critic John Reynolds said Canada should exclude citizens of certain countries, including China, from seeking refugee status in Canada.
"These people, they're not legitimate refugees," Reynolds said.
"(China is) a growing country, and, yeah, certainly it's not as good as Canada for a lot of people. But it's a growing and progressive country and doesn't qualify for refugee status any more."
Two migrants - a man and a woman - who were among almost 600 that came to British Columbia in decrepit ships last summer were granted refugee status late last year.
The woman's claim was accepted based on China's strict one-child policy and the man's was based on religious persecution.
The California Jupiter may be the first freight ship carrying migrants to arrive in Vancouver, Reynolds said, but allowing the men to claim refugee status means it won't be the last.
Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan was not available for comment.
Victor Wong of the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians said one in three Chinese refugee claimants who has a hearing is successful, based on such things as human rights abuses.
Wong called Reynolds's statements "shockingly ignorant."
Wong said he will visit the 25 stowaways as soon as possible at the Vancouver Pre-trial Centre where they are in custody.
Reynolds said American authorities may have sent the ship on to Vancouver despite knowing it was carrying illegal immigrants because they wanted to spare themselves the expense.
"Maybe they just didn't want the problem," he said.
But immigration authorities said there was no room for the ship in the Seattle port, and the men could not be left in the cargo containers any longer.
Last summer, three Romanian men were found asphyxiated in a cargo container in Montreal.
About 100 asylum-seekers a year arrive in Montreal via containers or hidden elsewhere on ships.
Canadian officials have appealed to Chinese authorities to stop the smuggling at the source.
Hong Kong police are tracking the exporters of the containers, Lap Kei Trading Co. of Hong Kong.
The shipping company that hauled the containers, NYK Lines, was fined $375,000 for the incident - the largest fine ever handed out to a shipping company.
But in a letter Tuesday to NYK Line's agent in Vancouver, Greer Shipping Ltd., the Immigration Department said all but $80,000 of the assessment could be returned.
Of the $15,000 levied for each migrant, $3,200 was "an administration fee and is not refundable," department official Shawn Beaver wrote in the letter.
"The remaining portion is used for costs incurred if any of the individuals are returned to China. If no removal costs are incurred a refund is applicable."
Immigration Department spokesman George Varnai confirmed in an interview Wednesday that under the Immigration Act, the government may have to repay the money if the migrants are allowed to stay in Canada.
This means taxpayers would pay for expenses incurred by the migrants including the cost of food, shelter, medical checks, translators, refugee hearings and legal aid.
An Asian organized crime expert told the Vancouver Province that one criminal syndicate is responsible for a spate of recent container smuggling along the West Coast of North America.
"We became aware of the use of soft-top containers to ship illegals about a year ago," said Sgt. Jim Fisher, a Vancouver city police officer currently working in Ottawa.
"After last summer's arrivals in the decrepit boats it has always been believed that there will be more, and that criminal gangs would switch routes or use different methods of getting into North America."
Most of the men, women and children who arrived last summer have made refugee claims. Only two of about 150 claims dealt with so far have been successful. © The Canadian Press, 2000
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