Fleeing to the U.S.
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.
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