VANCOUVER, July 31 (AFP) - Canadian immigration
officials decided to detain all but eight of the 123 Chinese
migrants taken from an intercepted boat last week amid fears that
international people smugglers may be targeting Canada, officials
said.
The Chinese boat people had been aboard an aging, unmarked
vessel when it was intercepted by the Canadian Coast Guard off the
coast of Vancouver Island on July 21.
The Canadian government ruled Friday that 115 of the ethnic
Chinese refugee claimants would spend at least another week in
custody.
Eight of the illegal immigrants, aged 14 to 18, were released
Thursday into foster homes under the supervision of British
Columbia's Ministry of Families.
"Immigration is continuing to work on establishing their
identity," Immigration spokeswoman Lorna Tessier said of the
detained migrants.
The refugee claimants being kept at the Canadian Forces Base in
Esquimalt on Vancouver Island have been fingerprinted and
photographed, with the information sent to the US Federal Bureau
of Investigation to check if any have criminal records.
Wearing green coveralls and white tennis shoes, the Chinese
appeared briefly before an Immigration and Refugee Board
adjudicator Friday handcuffed in twos.
A lawyer representing six of the refugee claimants said the men
deny being part of a smuggling operation.
The Chinese migrants told police that their boat left the
eastern province of Fujian 39 days earlier on a voyage that some
said cost 40,000 Canadian dollars (26,600 dollars), a lifetime's
worth of wages for the average Chinese worker.
Immigration Minister Lucienne Robillard earlier denied Canada
has become a haven for people smugglers, or snakeheads as they are
called in China.
"We have to work against the traffickers not people who are
sometimes victims," she said in Ottawa on Wednesday.
A similar unmarked freighter was discovered in the same region
two weeks earlier, but had been empty. However, police suspect
smugglers had already unloaded illegal passengers.
A senior official of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
warned about the dangers of letting the boat people stay in
Canada.
"If they get let in and assimilated into society, you can bet
your bottom dollar there's going to be a lot more coming," Staff
Sergeant Glen Rockwell, of the RCMP's immigration and passport
section, said earlier in the week.
Most agree that sentences in Canada are light compared to other
countries like the United States, Australia and New Zealand where
the illegal immigrants can be detained indefinitely.
The maximum penalty for people smuggling in Canada is five
years, compared to 20 years in Australia.