Thursday, July 22,
1999 Half of Chinese refugees abandon
claims, go to U.S.
Adrienne Tanner
National
Post
Chinese refugee claimants, the second largest group of asylum
seekers in Canada, are more likely to abandon their claims than
those from any other country in the world.
For the past two years, half of the refugee claims from China
were abandoned before they went to Immigration and Refugee Board
hearings, suggesting that Canada is merely a temporary stop-off for
many migrants headed to the United States.
"There's the perception that the United States is still the land
of milk and honey," says Catherine Sas, a Vancouver immigration
lawyer.
"That Canada is a nice place, but if you really want to become
super wealthy, you've got to go to the U.S."
Of the 1,494 Chinese refugee claims settled by the board during
the last fiscal year, 750 were abandoned when claimants failed to
show up for their hearings. The story was the same the year before,
when 479 of the 968 Chinese refugee claims were abandoned.
Law enforcement, immigration and legal experts say many Chinese
migrants file refugee claims in Canada simply to buy time until they
can find a way south.
They fly in by plane or stowaway on cargo ships, often smuggled
in by professional people, traffickers or "snakeheads" who charge as
much as $70,000 for entry to the West.
"Within the past few months, we have had three documented cases
where people have come to the U.S. on cargo container ships," said
Carey James, the U.S. Border Patrol's chief agent for western
Washington.
The journey often begins in the port cities of Fujian where it is
easy to hook up with smuggling rings, says Yael Fuchs, the
Washington co-ordinator of the Laogai Research Foundation, an
American-based human rights organization focusing on China.
Typically, the migrants land in Western Canada and then head
straight to New York and other cities along the Eastern seaboard,
said Sergeant Bill MacDonald, of the RCMP immigration branch in
Ottawa.
Police have had some success intercepting illegal migrants at the
border, but fear that for every one caught, dozens more get through.
The biggest concern is that these people are queue jumpers, Sgt.
MacDonald said.
"They haven't gone the proper route to get into Canada legally.
So, we don't know who they are. They haven't been screened medically
or criminally."
Just before Christmas, nine people were charged with helping
smuggle hundreds of Chinese immigrants over the American border at
the St. Lawrence River near Cornwall, Ont.
Then, in February, four women were caught trying to cross the
Lewiston/Queenston bridge over the Niagara River by clinging to a
piece of plywood on the undercarriage of a truck. Two were near
death from carbon monoxide fumes when they were found.
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