Illegal Chinese immigrants land in U.S. limbo

Kari Huus Reporter • Profile • E-mail

SEATTLE - Even as the debate over illegal immigration raged this month on Capitol Hill, 22 Chinese were among the many migrants making their way to these shores, using a scheme that is among the most dangerous and expensive ways to illegally enter the United States.

In early hours on April 5, 18 men and 4 women pried their way out of a 40-foot-long shipping container that had arrived in the port of Seattle from Shanghai the previous day after a two-week journey. They didn't get far before security guards spotted them as they tried to find a way out of the fenced shipyard, and they were soon taken into custody by U.S. border security.

Had these stowaways been Mexican, they likely would have been subject to relatively rapid deportation, with no immigration hearing, through a procedure called "expedited removal."

But dealing with illegal immigrants from China is rarely so simple. Though they are vastly outnumbered by illegal immigrants from Latin America — perhaps 500,000 among the estimated 13 million "unauthorized migrants" — they are tougher to remove, for reasons as complex as the U.S.-China relationship itself.

The problem is the subject of heated behind-the-scenes talks as Chinese President Hu Jintao visits the United States to meet with President Bush and discuss other irritants in the relationship, including piracy and currency manipulation.

It's all but certain, say immigration enforcers and experts, that the stowaways detained in Seattle will make their way into the byzantine immigration or asylum system. In the process, some will gain legal residency — but many will disappear and slip quietly into the workforce and eventually gain a solid toehold in America.

Homeland Security takes its gripe public
Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security says that more than 39,000 Chinese remain in the United States even though they have been issued final deportation orders — meaning they have exhausted all immigration and asylum appeals.

According to the agency, Beijing is not making their return possible by issuing required travel documents at a glacial pace. Homeland Security officials complain that the slow processing strains limited detention facilities — at a cost of $95 a day per detainee — and increases the chances that they will abscond after their detention period expires.

Of the more than 39,000 Chinese who have been ordered deported, only 300 are now in detention. Under U.S. law, they must be released after 180 days unless they are a threat to the community. If Beijing hasn't submitted the paperwork allowing them to return before then, they are released on bond or placed in other types of monitoring programs.

Homeland Security, shunning the diplomatic approach taken by the U.S. State Department on the subject, has decided to make its complaint public.

"We don’t mind naming the countries that are not cooperating, and we’re starting with the biggest offender," said DHS spokesman Russ Knocke, echoing recent statements by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. "This is a part of an overall effort to restore integrity to our immigration system."

For several weeks, U.S. and Chinese security officials have been in back-room negotiations over the repatriation issue and Chertoff recently stated that the two sides have an agreement "in principle" that will lead to much faster returns. DHS officials declined to discuss details of the agreement in advance of Hu's visit.

Does Beijing lack incentive?
The United States has previously encountered problems deporting illegal immigrants — though normally on a smaller scale — from countries that have no formal ties with the United States (as was the case with Vietnam for many years) or that effectively have no government (such as the Sudan).

With China, it's different. Even though Beijing officially prohibits illegal emigration and has full diplomatic relations with the United States, just 800 Chinese nationals were successfully repatriated to China from the United States last year.

Why? The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for interviews on the subject, but in the past China has cited uncertainty about their identities.

Many Chinese destroy their passports as soon as they arrive, according to Zang Guohua, a Chinese reporter in Washington, D.C., making it hard to verify their origins, especially if they entered through a third country.

"The (Chinese) government has a point. You can’t just send them back by how they look or speak," he said. "(Beijing) demand(s) some kind of documentation that associates these people with their Chinese identity."

And it's easy to see how repatriating these illegal migrants — mostly blue-collar workers from a nation of more than 1 billion — might not be viewed as a high priority in Beijing.

"They probably don’t want to take them back because there are so many, and then what do they do with them?" said Elizabeth Peng, a American immigration lawyer in Seattle who was born in China. In the past, Peng said, China would jail those who were returned after illegal migration. "But in such large numbers, it would constitute such a loss of face. It doesn’t put them in a good light," she said.

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