Journal Articles:
U.S. and Multinational Coalition Disrupts Migrant Smuggling Operations
By Joseph R. Greene, Assistant Commissioner for Investigations,
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
Arresting Transnational Crime, August 8, 2001
Summary: Human smuggling is "21st century slavery" and a serious international problem facing democratic societies everywhere, according to Greene. He outlines a number of U.S. initiatives to combat the problem both unilaterally and multilaterally. Smugglers are "ruthless criminals," he says, noting that the INS's Border Safety Initiative in the year 2000 rescued some 2,500 illegal migrants who might have otherwise died in the hostile deserts along the southern border of the United States.
Alien Smuggling: Elements of the Problem and the U.S. Response
By Jonathan M. Winer
Trends in Organized Crime, Spring 1998
Summary: The smuggling of persons both violates the human rights of the smuggled and corrupts basic governmental institutions wherever they transit, says Winer.
Chinese Organized Crime and Illegal Alien Trafficking: Humans as a Commodity
By Jennifer Bolz
Asian Affairs, Fall 1995
Summary: Asian crime gangs have become formidable international threats, says Bolz. "Triads have taken over the smuggling of illegal immigrants from smaller 'mom and pop' organizations as an increasingly attractive alternative to drug trafficking because it promises multibillion dollar profits without the same severe penalties if caught," she says.
Book Excerpts:
Global Human Smuggling: Comparative Perspectives
Edited by David Kyle and Rey Koslowski, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001
This book examines a wide variety of facets to the growing problem of human smuggling -- some 4 million people are smuggled across borders each year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Three chapters dealing with Chinese human smuggling are reprinted here:
From Fujian to New York: Understanding the New Chinese Immigration
By Zai Liang and Wenshen Ye
Summary: Undocumented migration from Fujian is a continuation of a long-term tradition of international migration and the perception -- not the reality -- that Fujian is poor compared with the rest of China. Fujian is well connected to transnational smuggling networks which increase the success rates as well as the costs of illegal migration.
The Social Organization of Chinese Human Smuggling
By Ko-Lin Chin
Summary: Human smuggling is not closely associated with organized crime, says Chin. "No doubt members of triads, tongs, and gangs are, to a certain extent, involved in trafficking Chinese, but I believe that their participation is neither sanctioned by nor even known to their respective organizations," he writes. The Chinese trade in human smuggling, according to Chin, is controlled by many otherwise legitimate groups, both small and large, working independently, each with its own organization, connections, methods and routes. His conclusions are based on interviews with 300 smuggled Chinese in New York City and other informants, and research trips to sending communities in China.
Impact of Chinese Human Smuggling on the American Labor Market
By Peter Kwong
Summary: "The issue of Chinese illegal migration is more of a labor than an immigration problem," writes Kwong. As long as there is a demand for cheap, vulnerable labor which is unprotected by U.S. laws, there will be jobs for illegal aliens and a market (now estimated at about $4 billion annually) for human smugglers.
Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States
By Ko-lin Chin, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1999
Summary: Chin interviewed 300 smuggled Chinese in New York City to learn why and how they left China and what their lives were like once in the United States. He graphically describes the hardships they face but concludes that "the outflow of Chinese will stop only after the economic, political, and legal systems of China approach those of the industrialized and democratic countries."
Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labor
By Peter Kwong, The New Press, New York, 1997
Summary: Kwong looks at the plight of illegal immigrants in the United States from a labor standpoint. "Smuggling unfree labor for profit is barbaric and should be outlawed, just as was the slave trade, which was banned in the nineteenths century by European states," he writes. He illustrates how illegal immigrants, seeking better economic opportunities in the United States, too often find themselves exploited, in debt, and trapped in low-wage jobs.
Papers:
Corruption: The International Security Dimension
By Dr. Kimberley Thachuk
Paper delivered at the 2002 Pacific Symposium
"Addressing Transnational Security Threats in the Asia-Pacific Region"
National Defense University
Summary:Thachuk explores the various ways corruption manifests itself and describes both its domestic and international impact. "Criminal organizations and terrorists use corruption to breach the sovereignty of many states and then continue to employ it to distort domestic and international affairs," she writes. "The threats these groups pose to international security are significant."
Terrorist groups, like organized criminal groups, raise money through activities such as smuggling, drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion, according to Thachuk. "As organized criminal groups do, to avoid detection and prosecution by justice officials, terrorist groups must pay for their operations to be overlooked by officials," she writes. Human and drug smuggling, however, are among their many activities that lend "an international wrinkle" to a domestic scourge.
The Nexus of Organized International Criminals and Terrorism
By Louise I. Shelley, Phd
Paper delivered at the 2002 Pacific Symposium
"Addressing Transnational Security Threats in the Asia-Pacific Region"
National Defense University
Summary:Human smuggling, along with drug and arms trafficking, remains an important source of illicit capital in the Pacific region, according to Shelley. In China, "the collusion of government officials is central to the capacity of smugglers to operated," she writes. And Fukian province, where so much of China's human trafficking originates, "is an area outside the control of the Chinese government where complicit officials allow the crime groups to operate."
"Criminals and terrorists both engage in illicit activity," Shelley says. "The transnational criminals do this solely to make money. Whereas for terrorists, this ordinary criminal activity is used to support their larger political and ideological objectives. Yet the crimes committed by these two groups differ only in motive and not in substance. Both types of transnational criminals traffic drugs, human beings, counterfeit, and engage in diverse forms of fraud.... The war against terrorism cannot be separated from the fight against transnational crime."
*See also "In the News"
