Tyson Foods Indicted in INS Probe; U.S. Says Firm Sought Illegal Immigrants
By Kirstin Downey Grimsley, The Washington Post, December 20, 2001
and
Tyson Indicted on Alien Counts; Charge: Smuggled Illegal Workers
By Michael Martz, The Richmond Times Dispatch, December 20, 2001
       A federal grand jury in Tennessee indicted Tyson Foods, Inc. on December 19 on charges of smuggling more than 2000 illegal immigrants to work in 15 poultry plants across the United States.
       Spokespersons for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which conducted investigations for two and a half years, said it is the largest case alleging corporate smuggling of illegal immigrants in American history.
      U.S. federal authorities allege that Tyson Foods, Inc. paid undercover agents and others to recruit and transport illegal immigrants at a rate of $200 per person. The workers came from Mexico, China and other countries.
       Some 22 Chinese workers had entered the United States under temporary work visas, but lost them less than nine months after arriving. Each worker reportedly had paid $10,000 to a Chinese company for the opportunity to work at jobs that paid $6 to $7 per hour for as long as two years.

The Mob Lawyer, Updated: One Manhattan Attorney and the Chinese "Snakeheads"
By John J. Miller, National Review, December 17, 2001
       This article discusses the activities of Manhattan lawyer Robert E. Porges, who, along with his wife and five others in his law firm, has been indicted by the federal government of conspiring with smugglers to bring illegal aliens into the United States and filing false asylum claims on their behalf. Porges' clients remained under the control of the snakeheads who paid Porges an estimated $13 million in fees over nearly a decade.
       Miller suggests that "one tactic to combat alien smuggling may be to rethink asylum policy.... Perhaps those who have allowed themselves to be smuggled into the United States by violent criminal organizations should face somewhat stricter scrutiny than they have in the past.
       "It may be one of the few effective ways of fighting a phenomenon that comes as close to the African slave trade as anything this country has seen since the 19th century," Miller writes.

U.S. Stings Bus Firm
By Sharyn Obsatz and Claire Vitucci, The Press-Enterprise, December 11, 2001
and
Indictments Rock Niche Bus Industry
By Ken Ellingwood and Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times, December 12, 2001
and
"El Golden" Bus Line Mired in Trouble
By Florangela Davila, The Seattle Times, December 25, 2001
       These articles discuss the Golden State Transportation bus company, which was indicted December 10, 2001 by federal authorities of conspiring with smugglers to move thousands of illegal immigrants into the United States over the past six years. It is the largest immigration smuggling case to date involving a commercial bus company.
       U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft accused the Los Angeles based bus company of knowingly carrying about 50 to 300 illegal immigrants a day from Texas and Arizona border bus stations to Los Angeles, Denver and other U.S. cities, write Obsatz and Vitucci.
       The smuggling charges against the bus company spotlight the growing industry of carriers that legally ferry thousands of riders from the Mexican border to immigrant enclaves around the West, write Ellingwood and McDonnell. "Many of these regional operations, whose buses have become familiar sights on local freeways, sprang from humble, mom-and-pop origins. They tailor their services to immigrants.... Dozens of such firms have established a niche among the roughly 4,000 inter-city bus companies nationwide that carry an estimated 774 million passengers a year," they write.
       Davila writes that "the criminal allegations against Golden State have brought additional anxiety to Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, about heading to and from Mexico." A weakening U.S. economy and increased U.S. vigilance against terrorists have made undocumented workers more hesitant about entering the United States. Arrest rates for illegal crossings on the southern U.S. border dropped by 42 percent in the first two weeks of December 2001, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

Northern Border's Gaps Are Closing; New Measures Cut Flow of Illegal Workers, Goods and Drugs, Officials Say
By Brendan Lyons, The Times Union (Albany, New York), December 9, 2001
       Since the September 11 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, heightened security measures along the 4,000-mile U.S.-Canadian border have stanched the flow of undocumented immigrants. "Last year, between October 1 and November 28, Border Patrol agents arrested 1,679 people trying to sneak into the United States from Canada," Lyons writes. "During the same period this year, agents arrested 1,270 people -- a 24 percent decline."
        In the last three years, more than 120,000 people have been turned away annually at U.S. ports of entry along the Canadian, Lyons writes.
       "Many of the smuggling operations are run by international crime syndicates that use cargo ships to bring people into Canada and then ferry them across wilderness expanses and Indian [Native American] reservations," Lyons writes.

China Sentences Human Traffickers to Prison
AP Worldstream, November 25, 2001
       A Chinese court sentenced seven people for smuggling more than 40 would-be illegal immigrants to Japan, AP reported from Beijing. The smugglers face prison terms ranging from two to 15 years. Quoting from an article run by the China Daily, the AP report said that police in Fujian uncovered the smuggling operation.

Chinese Suspects Use the System to Remain in U.S.: Courts Hesitate to Return Even an Accused Heroin Trafficker to Beijing's Harsh Criminal Justice
By John Pomfret, with Philip P. Pan in Beijing contributing, The Washington Post, November 22, 2001
       U.S. law gives suspects wanted for crimes committed overseas the right to request to stay in the United States if they have a legitimate fear of torture; unfortunately, this often serves as a legal loophole to shelter genuine international criminals, according to Pomfret's article. He gives the example of Liu Zhanhao, who was convicted in the 1990s of credit card fraud in Toronto and California and of immigration fraud in California. Liu is now wanted for heroin trafficking by Chinese police, and China has sought his extradition. But because of China's much criticized human rights record and criminal justice system, Liu's lawyers have successfully fought to keep him in the United States.
       Beijing and Washington are, however, working for closer ties in fighting crime. "In March, China and the United States signed an agreement outlining procedures for cooperation between their countries' law enforcement agencies. The pact also provides a mechanism for one country to send a prisoner to the other to provide testimony or other evidence," Pomfret writes. "But an extradition treaty is still a long way off."
       Pomfret gives a number of examples in which American and Chinese law enforcement do, and do not, cooperate.

Manhattan's Chinatown Reeling from the Effects of September 11
By Jennifer Lee, The New York Times, November 21, 2001
       The September 11 terrorist attacks have hit New York's Chinatown hard, according to Lee. "A recent survey by local business leaders of 350 Chinatown businesses found that revenues were down 30 to 70 percent.... About 60 percent of businesses have already cut staff," she writes. Fewer tourists, trucking restrictions in the city, and the loss of telephone and other services hurt Chinatown businesses already feeling the ill effects of a softening U.S. economy. In addition, many illegal immigrants were reluctant to pass police cordons to reach their jobs.

Virginia Man Details Immigrant Smuggling Ring
By Brooke A. Masters, The Washington Post, November 4, 2001
       Mark Kuang, a 34-year-old American citizen, was sentenced to nine years in prison for his work in a smuggling ring that brought at least 2,000 illegal Chinese immigrants to the United States in the past decade. The ring included at least 30 members and earned some $60 million in total for smuggling customers to the United States by air via Japan, Saipan, and the Carib ben. Kuang admitted to receiving $150,000 for his role in recruiting and transporting the illegal immigrants.
       Once in the United States, the illegal immigrants applied for asylum, usually through the law firm of Robert Porges, which he operated along with his wife Sheery Lu. They allegedly earned more than $13 million for their work with smuggling rings.
       The alleged ring leaders, Chan Hak So and Chan See Min, have been arrested and are facing prosecution in the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to Masters.

Woman Pleads Guilty in Fatal Alien Smuggling Attempt
The Associated Press, October 30, 2001
and
Man Pleads Guilty in Fatal Alien Smuggling Attempt
The Associate Press, October 26, 2001
       The Associated Press reported from Seattle that Kam Hung Chan, 39, and Jin Ma, 28, pleaded guilty to their roles in the human smuggling scheme involving the freighter Cape May. In that incident, 18 Chinese stowaways were found in a 40-foot shipping container when the cargo ship arrived in Seattle January 10, 2000. Three were dead of thirst and starvation; a fourth died later of voyage-related causes.
       Both Chan and Ma could face a life prison term.

China Arrests People Smugglers
The Associated Press, October 24, 2001
       The Associated Press reported from Beijing that the official Xinhua News Agency released the news that police arrested 160 suspected human smugglers and 90 would-be illegal immigrants. The Chinese government began its crackdown on human smuggling in June 2000, after 58 Chinese illegal immigrants were found dead in a truck stopped in Dover, England. Chinese media reports said 400 smugglers, or "snakeheads," were arrested in Fujian in 2000.

Illegal Immigrant Total Is Raised
By D'Vera Cohn, The Washington Post, October 25, 2001
       Figures from the 2000 Census estimate that there are between seven and eight million illegal immigrants in the United States -- double the number estimated in 1990.

Border Crossers Said Increasingly Non-Mexican
The Associated Press, September 22, 2001
       More non-Mexican illegal immigrants are being apprehended along the U.S. southern border, according to this report. Officials of the U.S. Border Patrol say that in 2001, non-Mexican detentions grew by 42 percent, from 2,032 in 2000 to 2,886 in 2001.
       Most of the non-Mexican illegal immigrants picked up by agents in southern Arizona were from El Salvador and other parts of Central America. But illegal immigrants from Asia, the former Soviet Union, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries were also apprehended.

The Unfashionable Mr. Lam
By Elizabeth Kolbert, Mother Jones, September/October 2001
       Kolbert provides a portrait of Wing Lam, executive director of the Chinese Staff and Workers Association in New York City. Lam and his association have been working for the last 20 years to improve the working conditions for Chinese immigrants by serving as intermediaries between immigrant workers and labor enforcement agencies.
       The article describes the dismal conditions in garment sweatshops and restaurants, where workers put in long hours without overtime, are often not paid at all, and when they are, have their wages skimmed by their employers.
        "Much of Lam's work is anachronistic," Kolbert writes, "the labor conditions he is fighting have been illegal (in the United States) for more than half a century. But having a law on the books and having it enforced are, in this case, two entirely different things." Undocumented workers are especially exploited since they lack legal protection and feel they have no choice but to accept illegal working conditions.
       Kolbert quotes Lam as saying of the desperate Fuzhounese in New York: "People think work is better than no work. Unfortunately, the real truth is, even if you work 14 hours (per day), someone is willing to work 16 hours.... We ask workers' commitment to help other workers. That's the only way we have strength."

On California's Urban Border, Praise for Immigration Curbs
By Mireya Navarro, The New York Times, August 21, 2001
       The 26,000 residents of Imperial Beach, California -- a coastal city south of San Diego and near the Mexican border -- are grateful for tighter immigration controls, according to this report.
       Seven years ago, before U.S. immigration officials implemented "Operation Gatekeeper," "hordes" of illegal immigrants passing through kept resident families and visitors away from the beaches and nearby businesses, Navarro writes. The Border Patrol once arrested more than 2,000 illegal immigrants in and around the city in one 24-hour period.
       "The quality-of-life problems of border communities are not well publicized," Navarro writes. "But some immigration experts say these problems add another point of view to a national debate that has lately focused on the risks to the illegal immigrants. A General Accounting Office report released in August (INS' Southwest Border Strategy: Resource and Impact Issues Remain After Seven Years. GAO-01-842, August 2, 2001)said that other communities where border enforcement had increased had experienced economic improvement and lower rates of crimes like theft."

Big Money in Smuggling Migrants Is Tempting for Mexican Truckers
By Ginger Thompson, The New York Times, August 16, 2001
        Truck drivers and many other working people are getting sucked into the big-money world of human smuggling, according to this report.
       More than 4,000 prisoners are serving time in Mexican jails on charges of human smuggling, "a sophisticated yet informal $1 billion enterprise that authorities say has become comparable in profits and violence only to the illegal drug trade," Thompson writes.
       Thompson reports that officials at the National Migration Institute in the Mexican state of Veracruz, a major transit route for illegal immigrants, said that "at least 100 criminal rackets run operations that extend from Central America through Mexico and into the United States."

18 Months Later, Most Stowaways Have Lost Bid to Stay
By Nicole Tsong, The Seattle Times, July 29, 2001
       Of the 62 illegal Chinese immigrants who arrived in Seattle, Washington as stowaways on ships in January 2000: 3 died; 16 were deported; 18 were to be deported once Chinese travel documents arrived; 4 were fighting deportation through legal avenues open to them; 6 were released conditionally while their cases continue to be reviewed; 15 were granted asylum and released.

Three Charged in Smuggling of Aliens from China
Associated Press, July 10, 2001 See full text.
       U.S. Federal authorities have indicted three people on charges of smuggling 18 Chinese aliens -- three died during the trip -- into the United States aboard the "Cape May," a ship that arrived in Seattle in January 2000. (See photo, INS film clip from the "Cape May" interdiction.) The smugglers could face life imprisonment.

Shootout Over Migrants Shows Danger to Public; Last of Kidnappers Face Sentencing
By Pat Flannery, The Arizona Republic, July 9, 2001 See full text.
         Kidnapping illegal immigrants for ransom grows along with the lucrative criminal enterprise of human smuggling.

Inside New York's Sweatshops
By Bob Port, Daily News (New York), July 9, 2001
       Growing numbers of Fukienese garment workers owe more than $50,000 each to loansharks who paid off the snakeheads who brought them into the country illegally, according to this report. In New York, most of the garment factories employing illegal Chinese immigrants are clustered in the East Broadway section of Chinatown, but more "sweatshops" are popping up in Queens and in Sunset Park in Brooklyn.
       State inspectors investigating one garment factory in Sunnyside, Queens, found that the workers hadn't been paid in three weeks, a violation of state law. The women working there said they were getting $5.15 per hour, but "their behavior suggested they were really paid by the piece," according to this report.

Mexico's Highway Robbery: High-Level Informer Details Shakedowns, Abuse of U.S.-Bound Immigrants by Officials and Police
By Mary Jordan, The Washington Post, July 5, 2001
       This article discusses Victor Manuel Romero, who once was part of an extensive system in Mexico for smuggling illegal immigrants. Posing as a Mexican immigration agent, he and his colleagues sold illegal immigrants safe passage toward the U.S. border. Now in jail, Romero has agreed to cooperate with authorities.
       According to Jordan's report, corrupt Mexican officials "have divided up the highways, bus stations and airports, staking out claims to the money and belongings of thousands of foreigners passing through their territory." Non-Mexicans face the greatest abuse, she writes.
       "Mexico deported more than 150,000 foreigners trying to use the country as a transit route to the United States last year," she writes, "and for every one caught many more are believed to make it."

Trio of Crashes Highlight Dangers Immigrants Face
By Joann Loviglio, Associated Press, June 22, 2001 See full text.
       Illegal immigrants desperate for jobs frequently fall prey to unscrupulous employers. "Alien smuggling and employing unauthorized aliens is not a victimless crime. People are abused and people die," says Kenneth J. Elwood, district director for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

Perished Migrants' Families Want Payment
By Marjorie Miller, Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2001
       Relatives of the illegal Chinese immigrants who died in the back of the freight truck smuggling them into Britain will seek compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, a British government fund for victims of crime.
       Fifty-eight illegal immigrants suffocated in the Dutch-registered truck; their bodies were discovered by authorities June 18, 2000. Attorneys Mark Ryan and Amie Tsang, the lawyers who represent 93 parents, 34 spouses and 68 children left behind by the deceased, said they would file the claims. The amount of compensation asked was not disclosed.
       Ron Armour, spokesman for the criminal injuries authority, is quoted as saying that "his 'gut reaction' is that in this political environment, Britons will not support the compensation claims." But he added that "all that matters is who is eligible under the strict criteria of the compensation scheme."

Immigrant Chinese Find New Pain in Old Ruse
By Yilu Zhao, The New York Times, June 17, 2001
       Some 539 Chinese immigrants were bilked by Kaitong, Inc. of Flushing, New York, which had promised them they would "sail through" the visa application process in less than three months. Most of the immigrants had paid between $1,000 to $2,500, but received nothing in return. The company's owner, Ding Gang Xie, has disappeared.
       Sue Rheem, director of Asian Americans for Equality, a New York-based advocacy group, is quoted as saying: "This happens in the immigrant communities all the time."
       New immigrants are often victims of such scams because they speak little English and know little about immigration laws. When they discover they've been cheated, they don't know what U.S. authorities to contact, or are afraid to contact them. As a result, the con artists get away.
       There are legitimate agencies that help immigrants through the bureaucracy of visa applications, and some do not charge a fee, Zhao writes. But only U.S. federal officials -- the Immigration and Naturalization Service or the American embassies and consulates -- have the authority to actually grant visas.

Mexico Becomes World's Anteroom: Immigrants from Around Globe Seek Back Door Into U.S.
By Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan, The Washington Post, June 7, 2001
       A growing number of immigrants from all over the world are trying to use Mexico to enter the United States illegally.
       Both the United States and Mexico are spending millions of dollars to control human smuggling. Mexico spends more than $9 million per year to apprehend, house, feed and deport illegal immigrants, according to this report.
       "Mexican authorities deported 152,000 illegal foreigners last year, almost all of them trying to reach the United States," write Sullivan and Jordan. "Another 28,000 were caught by U.S. officials after crossing the border."
       Sullivan and Jordan report that: "Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, national security adviser to President Vicente Fox, said Mexico's main concern is the increasingly powerful gangs that smuggle foreigners through Mexico. Smuggling syndicates have become more organized and well-connected throughout the world, increasingly offering services not just to Mexican farm hands but also to businessmen from Asia and the Middle East."

Smuggling People Is Now Big Business in Mexico
By Mary Jordan, The Washington Post, May 16, 2001 See full text.
       Tighter border controls and increased risk command higher fees for human smugglers. As a result, well-organized syndicates appear to be replacing small-scaled smugglers -- or "coyotes" -- along the Mexican border. These sophisticated criminal organizations are increasingly helping non-Mexicans illegally enter the United States. As the money involved grows, so too does the violence against illegal alien "customers" and other smugglers.

Illegals Paying Millions in Taxes: Most Don't Seek Refunds for Fear of INS Action
By Mary Beth Sheridan, The Washington Post, April 15, 2001
       Evidence suggests that illegal immigrants may be paying millions of dollars in taxes, according to this report. The suspected scenario is that the illegal immigrant gives a fake Social Security number to an employer -- typically in the restaurant, construction, or agricultural business -- who in turn has Social Security and other taxes automatically deducted from the worker's paycheck.
        Exact figures are hard to come by, but the Social Security Administration keeps a "suspense file" -- a record of employee earnings kicked back by computers because the name or Social Security number differs from the agency's records. In 1990, $1.2 billion dollars in Social Security contributions were recorded in this file; in 1998, the figure doubled to nearly $4 billion.
        The Social Security Administration reportedly has refused suggestions that it cooperate with U.S. immigration authorities to trace how much of the money comes from illegal immigrants. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) maintains confidentiality for all workers' records, the report says.
       Russ Bergeron, a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, is quoted as saying: "We certainly don't want to create a scenario where undocumented aliens are working in the United States in violation of one federal law, and to compound that, we establish a mechanism that basically discourages them from paying their taxes as well."

Great Britain/Truck Driver Convicted of Manslaughter: Found Guilty in Deaths of Chinese Immigrants Who Suffocated in Back of Tomato Truck
By Beth Gardiner, Associated Press, The Prince George's Journal, April 6, 2001
       Perry Wacker, a Dutch driver, was convicted in London of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years in jail for the deaths of 58 Chinese immigrants, Gardiner reports.
       Ying Guo, of South Woodford, England, was convicted on one count of conspiracy to smuggle immigrants and sentenced to six years in prison. She is the Chinese interpreter who allegedly served as the victims' British contact.
       On June 18, 2000, port officials in Dover, England found the bodies of 58 Chinese immigrants packed in with a shipment of tomatoes in a truck that had just made the 5-hour ferry crossing of the English Channel from Zeebrugge, Belgium. Wacker allegedly closed the truck container's only air vent to muffle any noise from his human cargo -- 58 suffocated; two survived.
       Nine other defendants connected to this case -- six from Holland and three Turks -- are on trail in the Netherlands charged with manslaughter or assisting in manslaughter.

Chinese Migrants Recount Fatal Trip
AP Online, March 2, 2001
       The Chinese immigrants who suffocated in a truck smuggling them into Britain had expected to fly into the country, according to a survivor.
       Fifty-eight people died in that accident. One of the two survivors, Ke Shi Guang, is quoted as having told authorities: "The snakeheads at home cheated us as they said they would be buying the tickets and we would be traveling by air."
       The other survivor, Su Di Ke, is quoted as saying that the migrants packed in the tomato truck "started panicking after about two to three hours because the vent was shut and there was no air....There was also a lot of shouting and screaming, but nobody came to help."

China Gets Tough on 'Snakeheads'
AP Online, February 26, 2001
       Quoting the official Xinhua News Agency, AP reported from Beijing that China, in a major crackdown, arrested more than 400 snakeheads in Fujian province, a historic stronghold for human smugglers. Most of the arrests were in Fuzhou, the capital city of Fujian. One county, according to this report, has offered up to $62,500 for the arrest of human smuggling ring leaders.

Insight on the News: "Mother of All Snakeheads"
By James Harder, The Washington Times, February 5, 2001
       Harder provides a portrait of Chen Chui-ping, known to authorities as the "Mother of All Snakeheads" for her role in smuggling thousands of Chinese into the United States. She is linked to the 1993 tragedy in which 10 of the 300 illegal Chinese immigrants aboard the Golden Venture died when they tried to swim ashore in the icy waters off New York City after the cargo ship ran aground.
       Born in 1949 in the poor farming village of Shengmei in Fujian province, Chen came to New York City illegally via Hong Kong in 1981 and built a $40 million crime network.
       According to this report, Chen became the biggest rival of the state-owned Bank of China located on East Broadway in New York when she started offering lower rates for transferring funds for immigrants.

Chinese Police Arrest Suspect in 58 Deaths in England
The Associated Press, January 27, 2001
       Chinese police have arrested Chen Xiaokong, the alleged head of a human smuggling ring, at a disco in Fujian province, AP reported from Beijing, quoting the Xinhua News Agency.
       Chen is suspected of arranging the passage of the 58 Chinese who suffocated in a freight truck attempting to enter the British port of Dover last June.
       According to this report, "police in Fujian have arrested more than 500 people on migrant-smuggling charges since 1999.... News reports last June said local authorities, including a Fujian village Communist Party chief, were accused of helping the smuggling gangs."

The New Face of Slavery
By Jorge Luis Mota, Exito! (a Spanish-language publication of the Chicago Tribune), January 18, 2001
       This investigative report finds that illegal Mexican workers are being hired through Chinese-owned employment agencies and forced to work in slave-like conditions at Chinese restaurants. Illegal immigrants told of being forced to work 14-hour days and being locked into their rooms at night. They were often paid late or not at all.
       While the focus of Mota's expose is on illegal immigrants in Chicago, Mota found that Hispanic workers hired by Chinese employment agencies are also sent to restaurants in other states. The states identified in the investigation are: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin.