VANCOUVER - The B.C. Children's Ministry says more than 30 teenage Chinese migrants have fled from provincial group homes since their placement last summer.

'We are not in a custody centre'

The Ministry believes most of them have gone to the United States.

Officials admit there's not much they can do to stop more young migrants from going south. And they says there's been almost no effort made to locate the missing youths, most of them between the ages of 16 and 18.

Vaughan Dowie is an assistant deputy minister with the Ministry.

"We do the best we can, but you have to understand, first of all, that these children are being given orders from Immigration that say that they're deportation-ready, or many of them are," he says. "We have to work within an environment where we are not in a custody centre and children realize that their hopes are diminishing."

Another 78 young migrants are still living in group homes in Vancouver and Victoria. Thirty others are now on their own, after reaching the age of 19 since coming to Canada.

The young people were among almost 600 Chinese migrants who arrived off the B.C. coast last summer. Some have been deported. The other adults remain in jail.