The cruel ＂foreign land dream＂ of illegal immigrants in China： illegal immigration is not worth it
Smuggling and illegal immigration have become a major global problem facing the world today. In recent years, China stowaways broke into Britain, the United States and other developed countries by plane, cargo ship or container truck. The stowaway’s narrow escape was a terrible experience.
China stowaway new york hardship road
"If I had known that America was like this, I would never have gone this way," Miss Chen’s words were full of helplessness. Miss Chen, who is in her twenties this year, smuggled into the United States from Changle, Fujian Province more than a year ago. Compared with those stowaways who left the country by land and drifted at sea for several months, she may suffer less on the smuggling road.
However, she didn’t want to talk about the arduous journey that lasted for more than a month. She just said that the group first went to Hong Kong via Guangzhou, and then arrived in Haiti, a small Caribbean country by plane. After hiding in Xizang for a while, they came to Canada with false identification provided by snakeheads, and later joined a tour group and crossed the border by land to the United States.
After leaving the hiding place set up by snakeheads for stowaways, Miss Chen, who is in debt of more than $50,000, has been working in a garment factory in new york Chinatown, working 12 hours a day, six days a week, and sharing a spacious apartment with many people. After graduating from high school, Miss Chen went to work in a shoe factory in Changle, and lived a relatively comfortable and comfortable life. After coming to the United States, she felt a great sense of loss.
Miss Chen said that what she wants most now is to go home, but with so many debts on her body, she has embarked on this road of no return, living a hellish life every day, and still dare not tell the truth to her family, so she can only choose good words.
In new york, there are many illegal immigrants like Miss Chen, most of whom come from Changle, Tingjiang, Langqi and other areas near Fuzhou. For many years, new york has been the largest gathering place of illegal immigrants from Fujian in the United States, and it is estimated that there are more than 300,000 illegal immigrants from Fujian in Greater new york.
New york is not the final destination.
The illegal immigration of Fujian people to the United States began in the 1970s and reached its climax in the 1990s. In an interview with reporters, a senior official of the US Immigration Bureau who has been dealing with illegal immigrants from China for a long time introduced some development trends and changes of illegal immigrants from China in new york in recent years.
The official, who asked not to be named, said that in recent years, a large number of illegal immigrants from some areas in Fujian to the United States have greatly changed the demographic composition of China in many big cities in the United States. Fujian people have replaced Cantonese people and become the main body of immigrants in these places. A considerable number of them have obtained permanent residency and will eventually become American citizens, so that they can legally reunite their immediate family members in the United States, thus further expanding the numerical advantages of Fujian immigrants in Chinese communities all over the United States.
Another development trend is that new york is no longer the final destination of illegal immigrants from China, but more like a transit point. Many illegal immigrants move to other states for a living once they have paid off their smuggling debts in new york.
Huang Keqiang, chairman of the American Lin Zexu Foundation, has long been employed by the US Immigration Bureau as an interpreter because he is familiar with English, Mandarin, Cantonese and Fuzhou dialect. According to him, from 1980s to 1990s, most illegal immigrants in Fujian took the form of collective boat smuggling, which was called "boat climbing era" by some illegal immigrants.
With the law enforcement authorities of the two countries stepping up their efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, large-scale illegal immigration by boat has been effectively curbed. Smuggling groups began to change their tactics, breaking up stowaways into parts, leaving the country in batches in different ways and arriving in some countries in Southeast Asia or South America, and then using forged third-country passports, either directly flying to the United States, or crossing the border from South American countries to the United States by sea or land.
There are also a few illegal immigrants from Fujian who follow the example of Wenzhou people in Zhejiang. They first apply for political asylum in Europe, obtain the right of abode, then go to the United States through legal status, and then stay there.
Fujian people who smuggled into the United States in the 1970s and 1980s were nicknamed "Wan Bage", which means that the smuggling fee they paid to the snakehead in those years was $18,000. With the increasing trend of smuggling, the smuggling behavior has developed into a three-dimensional, intelligent and international model, and the cost of smuggling has soared again and again, and it has now risen to 60,000 to 70,000 US dollars.
Life Gambling from Negative Numbers
60,000-70,000 US dollars is undoubtedly an astronomical figure for farmers in China. Although some Fujian immigrants who sneaked into the United States in the past and are now doing well have repeatedly stated that most of the illegal immigrants’ expenses are not their own, and they are generally raised from relatives and friends, and a considerable part of them come from loans from overseas relatives and friends. However, according to his interviews with more than 2,000 illegal immigrants, Huang Keqiang came to the conclusion that except for a few lucky ones, relatives and friends paid the illegal immigrants’ expenses at that time, the rest of them had to borrow usury.
Although the stowaways who have gone through hardships to set foot on American soil are in the United States, they have no chance to enjoy the material and spiritual life of Americans at all. Most illegal immigrants in China have no language and no other skills to make a living. Men can only work in Chinese restaurants, while women work in garment factories, working for more than ten hours every day, six days a week. Because they have no legal status, their remuneration is often lower than the minimum wage set by the US federal government.
In order to save money, some illegal immigrants use three shifts to sublet beds, and put rows of bunk beds 80 cm wide in the small basement. Like a lantern, everyone takes turns sleeping. Because of the long working hours and great intensity, people are extremely tired physically and psychologically, and have neither money nor energy to enjoy life.
Although some passers-by on the smuggling road have repeatedly confessed that they were not deceived by snakeheads as others said, a large number of facts show that there are still many people who listen to the deliberate exaggeration and exaggeration of snakeheads and some Chinese who smuggled to the United States in their early years and saved some hard-earned money and returned to China to shake off their wealth, and have unrealistic fantasies about the United States.
They think that as long as they are willing to endure hardships, they can stand in the United States, endure hardships for a few years, and make big money. However, this idea is based on extremely unreliable wishful thinking.
A Chinese scholar who studies illegal immigration pointed out that illegal immigration is a gamble with life as a bet. Like any gambling, some people make a fortune, others lose everything, and most people just draw a tie.
Chen Ronghua, a key member of Changle Association, said in an interview with local Chinese media that if it is often necessary to start from scratch when coming to a foreign country, the life of illegal immigrants will start from a negative number, and they are burdened with heavy debts, just like struggling under the horizon.
American immigration policy is ideological.
American immigration policy seems just, but there are many problems in fact, which are influenced and restricted by various factors such as economy, politics and ideology. On the one hand, American immigration policy has strong pragmatic characteristics, on the other hand, it has distinct ideological color.
The economic development of the United States is inseparable from the contributions made by immigrants from all over the world, including illegal immigrants. A large number of illegal immigrants have provided the United States with cheap low-level labor and undertaken a large number of low-income manual labor that Americans are unwilling to do. Without these illegal immigrants, the cost of living for Americans will greatly increase and the quality of life will decline.
Therefore, the immigration authorities in the United States have neither the will nor the ability to drive away a large number of illegal immigrants stranded in the United States, but have adopted a pragmatic attitude, turning a blind eye to illegal immigrants when the American economy is prosperous and needs labor, and strengthening the clean-up and repatriation when the economic situation is poor, unemployment is serious, or it poses a serious threat to US national security.
The ideological color of American immigration policy is most prominent than the provisions on political asylum. For those citizens from countries that are regarded as ideologically opposed to the United States, the United States has been implementing political asylum and other regulations in an attempt to divide and disintegrate these countries from within.
For example, the Cuban Situation Act, which came into effect in 1966, stipulates that any Cuban immigrant who has no criminal record within a specified period of time after setting foot on American soil in any way can automatically obtain permanent residency in the United States. Many illegal immigrants from China who have sneaked into the United States have come up with the idea of "political asylum" in order to obtain the legal status of staying in the United States.
According to lawyers engaged in immigration business, illegal immigrants in the United States generally have three options to legalize their status: one is to apply for the so-called "labor paper" issued by the US Department of Labor; The second is to get married with local people or apply through local immediate family members; The third is to seek so-called "political asylum". However, there are many restrictions on the application of "labor paper". Many illegal immigrants in Chinese mainland often have no hope of taking this route because their academic background can’t meet the requirements, and the second option is also limited by many conditions, so most of them choose the third route.
China and the United States should strengthen cooperation to combat smuggling
As a developed country with a vast territory, the United States has a looser immigration policy than many western countries, so it has always been a destination country for illegal immigrants. At present, the number of illegal immigrants in the United States has never been able to give an authoritative figure, which is generally estimated to be between 8 million and 12 million.
The absolute number of illegal immigrants from China in the United States is not the largest, and the relative number calculated by the total population is even less. However, the illegal immigrants from China, who are mainly from Fujian, have received the attention of the news media because they have encountered the most hardships and paid the most in the journey of smuggling to the United States, and sometimes they have caused death tragedies.
The immigration official interviewed by the reporter pointed out that the law enforcement authorities of the United States and China should further strengthen cooperation in cracking down on illegal immigration. In view of the fact that some Fujian immigrants involved in the case in the United States often fled back to Fujian when they learned that they would be prosecuted, there is no extradition treaty between the two countries at present, and there are great differences in judicial systems, so the two countries urgently need judicial cooperation in this field.
For example, when pursuing the main "snakeheads" hiding in China, can China consider recognizing the arrest warrants and prosecutions issued by the US for these criminals, or accepting the evidence provided by the US law enforcement authorities to prosecute these "snakeheads" in the courts in China?
Article source: Reference News Special Issue/Wang Bo
Original title: China stowaway new york hard road