STORY: A FISHERIES patrol plane spotted it first - a rusty 
old cargo 
	     ship, unmarked and unflagged, lurking off the coast of 
Vancouver Island. 
 
	     That alone stood out amid the usual traffic of fishing 
boats and barges. 
 
	     But coast-guard officials got a bigger surprise when they 
boarded the 
	     vessel. Jammed inside its stinking, garbage-strewn hold 
were 123 
	     mainland China migrants, wobbly-kneed after a 39-day voyage 
across 
	     the Pacific. 
 
	     Immigration officials hoped the 20 July incident was an 
isolated event. 
	     But three weeks later, a second boatload of mainlanders 
splashed 
	     ashore. On 31 August, the Canadian navy seized a third boat 
off the 
	     coast; nine days later, a fourth. 
 
	     In all, 599 boat people have been caught since July - no 
one knows how 
	     many boatloads got through undetected - and more may be on 
the way. 
	     British Columbia has become an improbable back door to New 
York 
	     City, the first landfall along a route of human smuggling 
that begins in the 
	     poverty of the mainland's Fujian province and ends in the 
sweatshops of 
	     New York's Chinatown. 
 
	     The migrants, nearly all of them seeking refugee status in 
Canada by 
	     claiming they were persecuted on the mainland, are 
straining 
	     government budgets and reigniting debate over Canada's 
immigration 
	     laws. 
 
	     It's not as if a creaky old boat is the only way into 
Canada. About 25,000 
	     refugee claims are submitted each year by new arrivals from 
all 
	     countries, and about half are approved, said Lorna Tessier, 
a 
	     spokeswoman for the Department of Citizenship and 
Immigration. 
 
	     But never have so many would-be refugees arrived all at 
once, and in 
	     such dramatic fashion. During their 9,654-kilometre voyage 
across the 
	     Pacific, many migrants got only a bowl of rice and two 
glasses of 
	     questionable water each day. 
 
	     ``It speaks to the level of desperation these people 
feel,'' Ms Tessier 
	     said. ``That's a long crossing with no washrooms, no beds, 
and 
	     contaminated water.'' 
 
	     The journey begins in Fujian on the mainland's southeast 
coast, where 
	     smugglers, known as snakeheads, approach impoverished 
farmers and 
	     other villagers with an alluring sales pitch. 
 
	     ``They're told a story about the good life here,'' said 
Victor Wong, head 
	     of the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians. Passage 
costs up 
	     to US$38,000 (HK$296,000), but most migrants pay little or 
no money 
	     up front, pledging to repay their debt once they're 
working. 
 
	     ``They're told that if they work three years, they'll be 
home free,'' Wong 
	     said. ``They're told they'll make the trip in an ocean 
liner.'' 
 
	     The reality is more like what happened to Yu Ying Chen, a 
skinny, 
	     wavy-haired 18-year-old who arrived on 11 August. After 
nearly two 
	     months at sea, the boat Mr Chen was on slipped past 
Canadian patrols 
	     in the fog and nosed in close to the shore of Kungit 
Island, 804 
	     kilometres north of Vancouver. 
 
	     The rocky, spruce-studded island is as remote a spot as any 
along 
	     British Columbia's coastline. The smugglers told Mr Chen 
and the other 
	     129 passengers to look for a road, even though they had no 
way of 
	     knowing whether there were any towns or roads in the area. 
 
	     There weren't. Mr Chen and the others, including children 
as young as 
	     eight, waded through the surf and huddled on a windy beach 
as the boat 
	     that dropped them off vanished back into the fog. 
 
	     Canadian authorities caught up with the vessel 129 
kilometres out to 
	     sea and arrested its nine crew members. Coast-guard boats, 
	     meanwhile, ferried Mr Chen and the other migrants 10 hours 
south to 
	     the Vancouver Island town of Port Hardy, where they boarded 
buses for 
	     an 8-hour drive to a Canadian navy base near Victoria. 
 
	     Early last month, after six weeks in jail, Mr Chen found 
himself in a stuffy 
	     hearing room in downtown Vancouver. Shackled and dressed in 
	     jail-issue red pants and shirt, the teenager sat nervously, 
slumping 
	     against the wall, occasionally lifting both cuffed hands to 
push his hair 
	     from his forehead. 
 
	     This was a detention hearing before an Immigration and 
Refugee Board 
	     adjudicator, held to determine whether Mr Chen should be 
released 
	     while his refugee claim was reviewed. 
 
	     Through a Putonghua-language interpreter, Mr Chen said he 
wanted 
	     asylum in Canada.	
 
	     He said he had a relative in Toronto, but when pressed for 
specifics, he 
	     couldn't provide any.  
 
	     The adjudicator ordered him held for another month, 
suggesting that he 
	     might be released later if the Toronto relative 
materialised and could put 
	     up a US$15,000 deposit. 
 
	     Mr Chen nodded grimly and shuffled out of the room on the 
arm of a 
	     guard, heading back to jail for another month. 
 
	     The sudden influx of mainlanders has put government 
officials in a bind. 
	     It's expensive - more than US$5 million so far _ to detain 
migrants while 
	     their refugee claims are reviewed, a process that can take 
up to a year. 
	     But few who are released ever show up for their hearings. 
 
	     Eighty-six of those arriving on the first boat were 
released, and at least 
	     51 of them have vanished, presumed to have skipped town, 
said Lois 
	     Reimer, a spokeswoman for the Immigration Department. 
 
	     ``They are part of one of the grandest smuggling schemes 
ever seen by 
	     the Canada Immigration Department,'' says a document that 
the agency 
	     filed to argue for keeping the rest of the boat people 
locked up. ``The 
	     snakeheads and their emissaries are always waiting in the 
shadows to 
	     retrieve their clients upon their release from immigration 
custody.'' 
 
	     According to investigators, the smuggling pipeline 
stretches from 
	     Vancouver to Toronto, where migrants are kept in safe 
houses and then 
	     taken into the United States through Indian reservations on 
the border. 
	     Their destination usually is New York City, where they've 
been promised 
	     under-the-table jobs in Chinatown. 
 
	     Canada is a country built by immigrants, with an 
increasingly Oriental 
	     flavour. About 7 per cent of Canada's 29 million residents 
are of Asian 
	     origin, according to census figures. Vancouver, which is 25 
per-cent 
	     Asian, is jokingly called Hongcouver in Hong Kong. 
 
	     But the sudden wave of boat people has prompted calls for 
stricter 
	     enforcement against illegal immigration and tougher 
criteria in granting 
	     refugee status. Many Canadians, especially other 
immigrants, resent 
	     that boat people are ``jumping the queue'' ahead of aliens 
who may wait 
	     years for permission to move here. 
 
	     ``You feel sorry for them as human beings, but there are 
ways to come 
	     into the country legally,'' said Betty Hamilton, 55, who 
runs a 
	     bed-and-breakfast in Port Hardy. 
 
	     She joined several hundred onlookers in August when Coast 
Guard 
	     boats arrived in the harbour with Mr Chen and the other 129 
	     mainlanders from the second boat. As the newcomers were 
ushered 
	     ashore, one resident welcomed them by playing ``O Canada'' 
on a 
	     trumpet, over and over. But four Indian women from a nearby 
reservation 
	     protested, wearing placards that said ``Feed our People 
First.'' 
 
	     Ms Hamilton believes the boat people are naive. 
 
	     ``They come in blinded by a big dream that isn't here,'' 
she said. ``They 
	     are victims, as far as I'm concerned. As I watched their 
faces go by, 
	     some of the young ones looked so hard already, and others 
looked 
	     bewildered. I don't think they have a clue about what 
awaits them.'' 
 
	     Mr Wong, of the Chinese Canadian association, said treating 
the 
	     newcomers like criminals was a cruel thing to do to people 
seeking 
	     sanctuary from persecution. While others contend that the 
boat people 
	     merely are trying to escape poverty, Mr Wong said most of 
the migrants 
	     have genuine concerns about human rights abuses on the 
mainland. 
 
	     ``They're leaving to escape China's one-child policy,'' he 
said, referring 
	     to the limits the communist government places on family 
size. ``Or 
	     they're trying to escape religious persecution. Some are 
Christians, and 
	     Christians are known to be persecuted in Fujian province. 
Or they're 
	     persecuted as an ethnic minority.'' 
 
	     Beijing has urged Canada to return all the boat people to 
the mainland, 
	     to discourage illegal immigration. 
 
	     ``There is no political persecution in China,'' Foreign 
Ministry 
	     spokesman Sun Yuxi said on 7 September at a Beijing news 
briefing. 
	     ``Most of these migrants are farmers. They are not 
political refugees.'' 
 
	     Whatever their motives, they are likely to keep coming. The 
grapevine in 
	     Vancouver's Chinatown has it that about a dozen boats had 
left Fujian 
	     province by early September, though the publicity 
surrounding the first 
	     four boats may have diverted later vessels to other 
countries in search 
	     of quieter landings. 
 
	     The navy, coast guard and Royal Canadian Mounted Police are 
on alert. 
	     Officials say winter weather may temporarily stop the boat 
traffic, but 
	     they're not counting on it. And navy officials concede they 
might not 
	     catch every boat venturing across their area of 
responsibility, a 
	     storm-raked 1,679,360 square kilometres of Pacific Ocean. 
 
	     ``You're looking at an area the size of British Columbia, 
Alberta and 
	     Saskatchewan put together,'' said navy spokesman Lt David 
McKinnon. 
 
	     Authorities say none of the four recently arrived boats met 
minimal 
	     safety standards for a long voyage. 
 
	     The third boat's hull was rusted so badly it appeared to be 
painted 
	     orange, and officials quickly loaded its passengers onto 
other boats 
	     because they feared the vessel might not make it the last 
few miles to 
	     shore. 
 
	     The Pacific is wide, and its storms are fierce. Ms Reimer, 
of the 
	     immigration department, believes a rickety boat stuffed 
full of migrants 
	     could leave the mainland and easily disappear. 
 
	     If it did, she said, ``people may never know.'' - AP