Saturday, September 11,
1999 3,500 migrants slipped into B.C.
unnoticed: U.S. Chinese nationals used
Ontario reserve to enter New York
Mark Hume National
Post
VANCOUVER - Thousands of Chinese migrants have landed on the
British Columbia coast in the past few years, moving through
Vancouver in a massive smuggling effort that funnels them across
Canada and into the U.S.
The traffic has been going on for years, not just since this
summer, when Canadian authorities have seized four immigrant ships
from China, including one yesterday carrying as many as 170 people.
An official with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service,
in Buffalo, N.Y., said yesterday that there is little doubt that
B.C. is the sole entry point for all the illegal Chinese migrants
crossing the border from Canada.
He said the B.C. connection was exposed when agents from several
agencies broke up an operation that had smuggled 3,500 Chinese
nationals into the U.S.
"All of them had come in on the coast, off Vancouver," said Mike
McLaughlin, assistant district director for investigations with the
INS. He said the ring, broken up last year in a joint Canada-U.S.
investigation, smuggled the Chinese migrants across the U.S. border
on the Akwesasne Indian reserve.
"What we determined was the trek was from wherever in China, to
the coast off Vancouver Island ... they were coming right through
Vancouver.
"They were coming by boat," he said. "Earlier on, there were a
lot of planes, but that seemed to dry up. Then the ships started
coming."
Mr. McLaughlin said after coming ashore, the Chinese migrants
were shuttled into Vancouver, then taken to Toronto, before being
passed to Akwesasne and smuggled across to the St. Regis Mohawk
Reservation on the U.S. side. They were all bound for New York City.
The smuggling operation, the largest ever broken up on the
Canada-U.S. border, collected an estimated $170-million in fees from
illegal Chinese over two years.
More than 40 people were arrested and charged with running the
smuggling ring. Almost all have pleaded guilty and are awaiting
sentencing.
Mr. McLaughlin said that while law enforcement officials feel
they knocked out the Akwesasne operation, the recent wave of ships
intercepted by the Canadian Coast Guard off the West Coast shows the
flow of illegal migrants never stopped.
"When we made the arrests [last year] it slowed down at first.
Then we saw a jump of false documents in Tacoma [just south of
Vancouver]. We started finding people on the backs of train cars at
Niagara Falls. We're seeing them now in North Dakota.
"It seems like it's spreading out."
John Kyl, a U.S. senator, said recently that as American
immigration officials tightened up on the Mexican border, there was
a shift in illegal traffic to Canada.
In response, U.S. authorities have increased security efforts,
including installing underground sensors near Blaine, Wash., and
Buffalo.
Mr. McLaughlin said U.S. authorities believe the B.C. coast is
the single entry point for all the Chinese migrants attempting to
enter from Canada.
He said the smuggling ships are now being caught off the West
Coast because the Canadian and U.S. coast guards are making a
co-ordinated effort and are much more aware of the problem.
"I don't know how many [ships] you've missed," he said.
Mr. McLaughlin said that despite the stepped-up enforcement on
the West Coast, U.S. immigration officials will still have to try
and catch the migrants, because most won't be sent back to China by
Canadian authorities.
The Akwesasne investigation indicated many of the illegals had
previously been processed by Canadian immigration.
"If you had 1,000 refugee applications, I would say that 998 made
the trek from Vancouver to Toronto and then to New York through the
reservation," he said.
And Mr. McLaughlin said British Colombia has certainly not seen
the end of smuggling ships.
"I think there's more coming. I don't know how many.
"We're working with the RCMP very closely trying to stop this
flow of bodies, but there's only so much we can do."
RELATED SITES:
(Each link opens a new window)
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
The brand-new white paper on immigration policy
Statistics Canada: Immigration and
Citizenship
Statistics from the 1996 national census that look at where
Canadians came from.
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