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Tuesday, November 09, 1999

Human smuggling in Fujian probed a year ago
Confidential report

Marina Jimenez
National Post

Chinese officials hold Canada's "strict visa policy" partly responsible for the tide of illegal migrants flowing into Canada, according to a confidential government report.

Fujian government officials complained to their Canadian counterparts during an August, 1998, visit that processing time for immigrant visas was too long, prompting many people to attempt to enter Canada illegally. Zi Yu Ren, director general of Fujian's Foreign Affairs Office, said it could take as long as three years to get an immigrant visa from Canada's embassy in Beijing, compared to less than 12 months at Canadian posts elsewhere.

Zu Hua Zhang, director of the provincial Public Security Bureau (PSB), also attributed the problem of Fujian's illegal migration to Canada's "very liberal refugee policy," that encourages people to remain in Canada as refugee claimants.

"Although originally the PSB stated that the problem largely stems from Canadian government policy, later it was acknowledged that smugglers are preying on the poorly informed," the report concludes.

The 20-page document, obtained under Access to Information by immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, reveals that the Canadian government began investigating the problem of human smuggling in Fujian a year before the arrival this summer in B.C. of 600 Chinese migrants aboard smuggling ships.

The Canadian government organized the official visit to China, in August, 1998, to investigate the "high level of fraud and illegal immigration" in Fujian.

Huguette Shouldice, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), acknowledged that demand for visa services in China has increased more than 500% in the last four years, and said that embassy staff has tripled. Last year, Canada issued 8,181 visas from the Beijing embassy.

Ms. Shouldice, however, said it was difficult to link the demand for visas to organized smuggling rings. She said Chinese businessmen, students and visitors frustrated by delays in visa processing would be unlikely to risk their lives for a $50,000 journey to Canada aboard a smuggling ship. "This does not make sense," she said. "People coming to Canada with the help of smugglers are not just trying to jump the cue. The majority are poor, uneducated peasants who would be unlikely to make it through our immigration processing point system."

In March, 1998, Caroline Melis, a deputy program manager with CIC, and Tom Cumming, an immigration control officer, travelled to Fujian, as well as three northeastern provinces, Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, to investigate people smuggling. They also investigated related issues such as the use of false documents, the verification of school certificates and China's one-child policy.

They found that counterfeit documents and altered passports from neighbouring Southeast Asian countries play a crucial role in smuggling operations. Chinese nationals of Korean ethnicity abuse South Korean passports, and migrants enter Canada illegally on Southeast Asian airlines such as All Nippon Airlines.

While Chinese officials complained about Canada's visa policy, they were willing to co-operate to improve the detection of counterfeit documents, the verification of notarized documents and to assist in the removal of Fujianese from Canada, the report noted.

Mr. Kurland, in Vancouver, said the report shows the Canadian government knew that illicit migration was a problem at least a year before the boat people arrived and took steps to combat it.




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