The fourth Chinese among the 590 migrants who arrived on four ships in summer 1999 in British Columbia was recognized as a refugee in January 2000 by the Immigration and Refugee Board. Some 493 of the migrants applied for asylum and 169 cases have been completed, with 92 applications rejected, four accepted, six withdrawn and 67 abandonments, meaning that the migrants who filed applications disappeared. This means that the acceptance rate for Chinese boat people, four percent, is far below the average of other asylum seekers. The Immigration and Refugee Board granted asylum to about 55 percent of applicants in 1998-99, including 44 percent of Chinese applicants.

Immigration Canada announced that it would appeal the IRB's decision to grant asylum to one of the Chinese migrants who claimed persecution as a result of his membership in the Falun Gong religious sect.

Canada detained most of the Chinese who arrived by ship, but not those who arrived by plane. In 1999, some 1,100 foreigners, including 402 Chinese, arrived at Vancouver International Airport and applied for asylum; most were released immediately or within one day.

Most of the migrants are from Fuijan, a province of 32 million in southeast China. Fujian has a history of emigration, as summarized by the so-called three eights: eight million Fujianese are abroad, 80 percent of Taiwanese people are of Fujianese descent, and Fujianese are eight percent of Hong Kong's population. One study found that over 80 percent of those leaving Fuijan for North America were employed, mostly as store owners, blue-collar workers or farmers, earning 1,000 yuan a month.

Another Fujian-linked ship with migrants arrived in Vancouver in January. The Canadian government said that "We can expect China will remain the top source country for both improperly documented passengers and refugees" in 2000. The government said that "state-owned enterprises are making drastic reductions in their workforce. Exit controls have been lifted and virtually everyone is entitled to apply and receive a passport." Thus, China "will continue to be the most important, most problematic, source of immigration to Canada for the foreseeable future."

The Chinese government says that it is trying to dissuade its citizens from leaving the country illegally. In January, China brought back 210 stowaways from Japan. They were sentenced to six months in jail instead of the customary two days.

Canadian authorities in early January 2000 found 10 Chinese teenage girls in a van waiting to enter the US via Walpole Island, a Native American reserve on the Ontario-Michigan border along the St. Clair River. After being apprehended without documents, all applied for asylum.

Fujian in broad strokes (montanajoe)

from http://www.sfu.ca/~riim/riim-info.webarchive/msg00582.html:

National Post November 09, 1999
Marina Jimenez

Chinese officials hold Canada's "strict visa policy" partly responsible for the tide of illegal migrants flowing into Canada, according to a confidential government report.

Fujian government officials complained to their Canadian counterparts during an August, 1998, visit that processing time for immigrant visas was too long, prompting many people to attempt to enter Canada illegally. Zi Yu Ren, director general of Fujian's Foreign Affairs Office, said it could take as long as three years to get an immigrant visa from Canada's embassy in Beijing, compared to less than 12 months at Canadian posts elsewhere.

Zu Hua Zhang, director of the provincial Public Security Bureau (PSB), also attributed the problem of Fujian's illegal migration to Canada's "very liberal refugee policy," that encourages people to remain in Canada as refugee claimants.

"Although originally the PSB stated that the problem largely stems from Canadian government policy, later it was acknowledged that smugglers are preying on the poorly informed," the report concludes.

The 20-page document, obtained under Access to Information by immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, reveals that the Canadian government began investigating the problem of human smuggling in Fujian a year before the arrival this summer in B.C. of 600 Chinese migrants aboard smuggling ships.

The Canadian government organized the official visit to China, in August, 1998, to investigate the "high level of fraud and illegal immigration" in Fujian.

Huguette Shouldice, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), acknowledged that demand for visa services in China has increased more than 500% in the last four years, and said that embassy staff has tripled. Last year, Canada issued 8,181 visas from the Beijing embassy.

Ms. Shouldice, however, said it was difficult to link the demand for visas to organized smuggling rings. She said Chinese businessmen, students and visitors frustrated by delays in visa processing would be unlikely to risk their lives for a $50,000 journey to Canada aboard a smuggling ship. "This does not make sense," she said. "People coming to Canada with the help of smugglers are not just trying to jump the cue. The majority are poor, uneducated peasants who would be unlikely to make it through our immigration processing point system."

In March, 1998, Caroline Melis, a deputy program manager with CIC, and Tom Cumming, an immigration control officer, travelled to Fujian, as well as three northeastern provinces, Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, to investigate people smuggling. They also investigated related issues such as the use of false documents, the verification of school certificates and China's one-child policy.

They found that counterfeit documents and altered passports from neighbouring Southeast Asian countries play a crucial role in smuggling operations. Chinese nationals of Korean ethnicity abuse South Korean passports, and migrants enter Canada illegally on Southeast Asian airlines such as All Nippon Airlines.

While Chinese officials complained about Canada's visa policy, they were willing to co-operate to improve the detection of counterfeit documents, the verification of notarized documents and to assist in the removal of Fujianese from Canada, the report noted.

Mr. Kurland, in Vancouver, said the report shows the Canadian government knew that illicit migration was a problem at least a year before the boat people arrived and took steps to combat it.

---------- "Don't believe any statistic you didn't fake yourself." - Anja Wohlgemuth

_________________________________________ Christiane Werner MA Candidate
Simon Fraser University Researcher
RIIM 8888 University Drive Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada

Where Do Most Chinese Illegal Aliens Originate? (US Dept of State)

Due to a variety of cultural and geographic factors, the majority of Chinese illegal aliens originate from just a few places in China. The region along the east coast of China is a source of extensive illegal immigration to the United States. In the past, most emigrants came from Guangdong Province, but today most come from Fujian Province or Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province. In each sending area there is both ready access to ports of departure and enough prosperity to make travel to the United States economically viable.