More nations are recognizing the problem of alien smuggling and joining together to combat it, says Jim Puleo, director of the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

"There has been, I think, more enlightenment about the problem in both the transit and sending countries," he said in interviews with The Washington File.

"It's ironic how many countries just a few years ago did not criminalize the act of smuggling, and so it was difficult for us to ask them to do something about the problem when they didn't have the statutory ability to do so," he said.

Puleo said that protocols on smuggling and trafficking established in 2000 by the United Nations have raised awareness worldwide about these issues. "Certainly our European colleagues are looking at this more closely than they have in the past," Puleo said.

Making the distinction between illegal immigrants who are smuggled versus those who are trafficked can be difficult, Puleo said. But establishing the definitions is important because there are certain benefits that accrue under the United Nations trafficking protocol that do not under the smuggling protocol.

"The easiest way to explain the difference between smuggling and trafficking is to consider two concentric circles," Puleo said. "Everybody is smuggled. But there are part of those who are smuggled that are trafficked -- what distinguishes one from the other is the deception, the coercion, the kidnapping, the force...."

He disputed the notion that human smuggling is a "victimless crime."

"There are parts of the world that actually see the downside of smuggling internationally -- the corruption, the crime that's perpetuated by the migrants and by the smugglers," Puleo said. But he added that many countries are not equipped to deal with the problem. "And some," he said, "don't want to deal with it because they actually gain from the migrants that are smuggled into countries like the United States because of the large amount of monies that are sent back."

Whether smuggled or trafficked into the United States, the illegal immigrant has broken immigration law, Puleo emphasized. These immigrants will be deported when discovered. But if they become smugglers or traffickers themselves, or aid smuggling ventures, the immigrants are subject to U.S. criminal statutes.

Currently, U.S. immigration laws impose on smugglers a 10-year-prison sentence for each immigrant smuggled. In practice, however, smugglers receive sentences of 24 to 68 months and then are deported, Puleo said.

Puleo emphasized that the United States will not abate its efforts to intercept and repatriate immigrants attempting to enter the United States illegally. "There is a legitimate way of coming into the county, and they (immigrants) should use the 'front door' instead of the 'back door,'" he said.

Responding to charges made by some that the United States is unfairly restrictive in its immigration policies, Puleo said: "I'd say there is probably no other country in the world that is as generous as we are. Legal migration into this country is over 500,000 (annually) and that doesn't count the immediate relatives who come in...." But he acknowledged that "the wait (for entry) is long because the requests are many."

Based on interviews done in August 2001 and April 2000

-- Story by Jane Morse, Washington File senior writer