Smuggling Of Chinese Immigrants Rising

[LaoSexMachine]

Smuggling Of Chinese Immigrants Rising

POSTED: Wednesday, December 24, 2008
UPDATED: 12:36 pm CST December 24, 2008
HOUSTON -- Attempts to smuggle illegal immigrants from China into the Houston area have increased in recent months, with the most recent effort being a scheme to fly them into the region, a top immigration agent said. On Dec. 11, a plane filled with illegal immigrants, including five Chinese citizens, took off from an airfield in the South Texas city of McAllen. The plane landed in Wharton, about 60 miles southwest of Houston, and its passengers were loaded into a vehicle. The passengers were later detained by authorities. The five Chinese citizens who were on the plane are being deported, the Houston Chronicle reported Wednesday. In September, U.S. Border Patrol agents intercepted 50 illegal immigrants packed inside an 18-wheeler at a South Texas highway checkpoint north of Harlingen, including 23 Chinese citizens headed to Houston. In October, ICE agents, Border Patrol and state troopers rounded up 54 illegal immigrants in the Mission area, including 40 from China. "We're seeing an increase in the smuggling of Chinese nationals into and through Houston in the past six months," said Robert Rutt, who heads ICE criminal investigations in the Houston area. Chinese immigrants are also coming in smaller groups, officials said. "We're also seeing other loads of Chinese nationals, in ones and twos, being smuggled into and through Houston," Rutt said. Rutt said he is not sure what's driving the increase in Chinese immigration but notes historically it has "ebbed and flowed." Chinese and other Asian immigrants are charged up to $25,000 to be smuggled into the U.S., usually by flying them to Latin America and then transporting them on the ground to the Texas-Mexico border. The local increase reflects a jump nationally this decade in Chinese illegal immigrants, according to a Department of Homeland Security analysis released in September of the nation's 11.8 million undocumented residents. Illegal immigrants from China increased 49 percent from 2000 to 2007, and homeland security now estimates there are 290,000 living in the U.S.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/18353699/detail.html#-

[LordKitchener]

That's interesting that the Chinese are flown to Latin America and then sent through the US/Mexican border. I thought it would be cheaper and easier to pack them on a container ship to the West Coast of the US.

[LaoSexMachine]

That's interesting that the Chinese are flown to Latin America and then sent through the US/Mexican border. I thought it would be cheaper and easier to pack them on a container ship to the West Coast of the US.


Well, you want to get to America alive. Shipped in a sealed container might not be the best way.

[LordKitchener]

Well, you want to get to America alive. Shipped in a sealed container might not be the best way.

Obviously, they are let out during the journey until they get near their destination.

[LaoSexMachine]

Obviously, they are let out during the journey until they get near their destination.


Alot of containers have a seal on the lock. It's only open when it get's to the destination.

[LordKitchener]

Alot of containers have a seal on the lock. It's only open when it get's to the destination.

OK but they still use this method although sometimes the people in the containers suffocate...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0WDQ/is_/ai_58735076

[matthew.manhorn]

I thought Houston is full of Viets.

[Angelino]

Why do they want to come to the US? With all the China Strong messages you see in here, I figured that they would be happy staying in China.

[LaoSexMachine]

I thought Houston is full of Viets.

Who do you think owns those businesses? Besides there's probably more Chinese in Houston then Viets.

[Ordie]

40% of undocumented immigrants arrive legally but overstay thier visas. It is estimated about 10% of undocumented are of Asian backgrounds.

Both the PRC and the ROC are alotted 40,000 visas each every year. This is a policy that's been in the books for decades.

Therefore there's a higher representation of people from Taiwan. They are usually with money and live in the LA Suburbs of Monterey Park, Rowland Heights and San Gabriel. Or in the Bay Area suburbs of Millbrae or Cupertino. They go back and forth often and have two residences.

The PRC folks are usually university students living in and around university towns.

Many common PRC immigrants try to get to the US via Hong Kong. What I've noticed lately within San Francisco Chinatown, the local Taishan / Cantonese languages are being supplanted with Mandarin. Many of the recent arrivals are from Hunan and tend to work for the same employer for years.

[Ordie]

Who do you think owns those businesses? Besides there's probably more Chinese in Houston then Viets.

Many of the Vietnamese immigrants are ethnic Chinese. Soon after the Communist arrival in Saigon, they were targeted because hey were capitalitist. To survive, they acculturated themselves to be Vietnamese, (Name, language, etc..)

I took a semester of Mandarin. The majority of students were Vietnamese of Chinese background trying to re-claim thier Chinese identity and language. The same was true with Cambodians immigrants. They had it really bad when both the Khemer Rouge and Vietnamese targeted the ethnic Chinese communities.

[LaoSexMachine]

Many of the Vietnamese immigrants are ethnic Chinese. Soon after the Communist arrival in Saigon, they were targeted because hey were capitalitist. To survive, they acculturated themselves to be Vietnamese, (Name, language, etc..)

I took a semester of Mandarin. The majority of students were Vietnamese of Chinese background trying to re-claim thier Chinese identity and language. The same was true with Cambodians immigrants. They had it really bad when both the Khemer Rouge and Vietnamese targeted the ethnic Chinese communities.


Alot like to claim Chinese. Viets have this fascination about being Chinese. Marrying someone Chinese is like marrying up. I don't get it and never will.

[Ordie]

Alot like to claim Chinese. Viets have this fascination about being Chinese. Marrying someone Chinese is like marrying up. I don't get it and never will.

For many centuries, migrants from Fujian provence have settled throughout SE Asia. There's bound to be a Chinese blood within the mix.

[oldsoak]

For many centuries, migrants from Fujian provence have settled throughout SE Asia. There's bound to be a Chinese blood within the mix.

Hokkien will certainly get you by amongst the Chinese in the Malaysian archipelago.

[LordKitchener]

Alot like to claim Chinese. Viets have this fascination about being Chinese. Marrying someone Chinese is like marrying up. I don't get it and never will.

Do the South Koreans have that same inferiority complex? I would guess not.

Also, I have a friend from mainland China and I get the impression he doesn't really like people from Hong Kong. Is this because Hong Kong has been more wealthy/politically free or are they seen as traitors for living (in the past) in a British territory?

[Eventine]

Do the South Koreans have that same inferiority complex? I would guess not.

Also, I have a friend from mainland China and I get the impression he doesn't really like people from Hong Kong. Is this because Hong Kong has been more wealthy/politically free or are they seen as traitors for living (in the past) in a British territory?

I suspect those factors do contribute, but HK people tend to look down on mainland Chinese as well, so that's something to keep in mind.

[oldsoak]

HK Chinese had a reputation for being very money orientated ,exploitive and vulgar. They didnt have a good reputation amongst the Malaysian or Singaporean Chinese either.

[Ordie]

I suspect those factors do contribute, but HK people tend to look down on mainland Chinese as well, so that's something to keep in mind.

Funny...most people from Hong Kong were orignally from the Mainland a generation or two.

[LaoSexMachine]

Funny...most people from Hong Kong were orignally from the Mainland a generation or two.


There's really no such thing as "Old money" mentality in East Asia.

[Eventine]

One can only hope that future generations will be more enlightened. Attitudes don't change that fast, but they do change.



Mainland accent brings a new tone to a vibrant city
By Joyce Hor-Chung Lau

Thursday, June 21, 2007
HONG KONG: Old-time Hong Kongers sometimes call themselves the "people beneath Lion Rock," after the ragged peak that looms over the peninsula joining Hong Kong to mainland China.
At the mountain's base is the leafy suburb of Kowloon Tong. It has never been a big tourist draw, but in the past decade it has seen many more visitors - and important changes.
If you want to see how the territory's identity has been transformed since 1997, forget about visiting the Legislative Council, and try this quintessentially Hong Kong neighborhood instead.
Of the two barracks that used to house British troops here, one lies empty and neglected, visited only by a cleaning lady who goes to sweep up the leaves. The other now belongs to the People's Liberation Army, though Chinese uniforms are rarely seen.
The mainland Chinese presence is inescapable, however, in the local rail station, which links the Hong Kong subway and the train from Guangdong Province. Raucous crowds of mainlanders spill out onto the platforms here, many speaking Mandarin rather than the local Cantonese. They jam the escalators, some lugging huge suitcases. Police officers hover and check identification cards.
In the shopping mall connected to the station, mainland tourists snap up designer goods. The nearby university is registering more mainland students than ever before.
Over the past decade in Hong Kong, skyscrapers have gone up and down; momentous political battles have been fought. But few developments have affected the average Hong Konger more than the opening of the border with mainland China.
Since 1997, more than half a million mainlanders have been allowed to move to Hong Kong and 13.6 million now visit each year - almost double the city's resident population. Meanwhile, the number of people who live on one side of the border and work on the other has soared - to 500,000 from about 50,000 in the early 1990s.
In their journey from a Communist-governed, still developing country to one of the world's most open and affluent economies, the mainlanders bring their own distinctive dialects, ways and aspirations. They have reshaped just about every aspect of life here - from how Hong Kongers do business and socialize, to the way they commute, marry and educate their children.
Migration from the Chinese mainland is hardly new. But for decades, it was defined by revolution and political turmoil on one side of the "bamboo curtain," while a British colony prospered on the other. Most of the old migrants were refugees, fleeing poverty, famine and persecution across a fortified international border. Many swam here. The newspapers tagged them "I.I.'s" for "illegal immigrants."
The post-1997 mainlanders, by contrast, are more likely to be legal workers, professionals and university students, and the border a line within a larger China.
Hong Kongers now shop across the border in Shenzhen as casually as American families might drive to a mall in another town. Cross-border romances and marriages are on the rise. The incessant chatter on Hong Kong's streets - from the haggling in produce markets to people yelling into their mobile phones - has become trilingual: Cantonese, English and Mandarin.
Even Hong Kong's famous action movies have changed: a typical scene may feature four gangsters in a car plotting a murder, two speaking Cantonese and two arguing back in Mandarin.
And then there are the commuters.
"There are about half-a-million people crossing that border regularly, and they are not tourists," said Michael DeGolyer of Hong Kong Baptist University, who has traced social and political changes since 1989 through the Hong Kong Transition Project.
Among the Hong Kongers who straddle the border is Chan Tit-keung, who continues to work here as a taxi driver, but now lives across the border near Shenzhen. It was a practical decision, he says.
"I live in a big, 1,000-square-foot flat by myself, and you can get a nice place for 2,000 yuan" a month, or about 90 square meters for $250 in rent, he said. "You can't afford a place like that in Hong Kong. I live outside the city, so the air is cleaner. And on my days off, I can go for long walks."
But if he likes the lower cost of living on the mainland side, he is less happy to see mainlanders moving into Hong Kong in search of higher wages - and depressing them in the process.
"Before, it was easier for older guys like us to find casual work in Hong Kong, and now it's harder," he said. "It's because the mainland workers have come down" in price for their work. Despite his current address, Chan identifies himself as "Hong Kong Chinese," a category he feels sets himself apart from his mainland neighbors.
"People there squat on the ground and smoke everywhere and fight in the bars, which is why I don't really go out when I'm on the mainland," he said. "And when I have to see a doctor, I come back down over the border with my Hong Kong ID card."
After the shock of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, Hong Kong saw its greatest number of residents emigrating to Western countries, where they hoped to secure passports in case the Chinese takeover went badly. But more recently, as China's political situation has stabilized and its economy surged, DeGolyer has seen more émigrés returning.
Lau Tak-man, who runs a bookstore in the bustling Tsim Sha Tsui district, moved to New Zealand with her school-age children in the early '90s. But she eventually returned to her hometown, saying things were "more relaxed."
"The spirit here is better," she said, as customers streamed in and out of her shop even though it was late evening.
If local anxiety once centered on the Chinese government, it now focuses on how the city will accommodate the new migrants. Justifiably or not, the local media have blamed them for endless problems: crime, disease, undercutting the job market. They highlight stories of the large numbers of pregnant mainlanders crossing the border to give birth here.
"There is definitely discrimination," said Sze Lai-shan, a mainland-born social worker who runs the New Immigrants Project for the Society for Community Organizations, a nonprofit group in Hong Kong.
"They go to a job interview and the employer hears the mainland accent on their Cantonese. Even if the job doesn't require much talking or use of Cantonese, they won't be hired. And if they are hired, they will be paid less."
Hong Kong lacks a legal minimum wage, and the willingness of many migrants to take low-end jobs for less pay is thought to be a factor in the growing gap between rich and poor. A study that Sze's group released in 2003 showed that mainland women tended to be employed as cleaners, garbage collectors and kitchen workers with little labor protection. Nearly half were working seven days a week.
But Sze says she sees hope in the next generation.
"In 1997, some schools would not accept new immigrant children, but that's changed now," she said. "Plus, new immigrant children learn and adapt easily, and Hong Kong children in general are too innocent to know to discriminate. It's the grown-ups who are the problem. It's the mainland mothers who struggle."
As mainlanders change the workplace, their children are having a similar impact in local schools.
Schooling was a point of contention at the time of the handover, when changes were made to the language of instruction, causing widespread worry among parents that students would not be able to adapt.
The new Hong Kong government adopted the "biliterate and trilingual" policy, meaning that students were expected to write in Chinese and English, and speak Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Fewer state-run schools taught primarily in English. Mandarin became a core subject, and was eventually introduced to standardized testing. Both Hong Kong children and adults scrambled to learn Mandarin, a skill many newcomers already had.
DeGolyer has observed a cultural change in his own classrooms, too.
"Before, Hong Kong students used to look down on the rare mainland students, make fun of their English," he said. "Ten years ago, there were hardly any mainland students in the university system. The mainland students have started to compete, raising the level of performance for everyone.
"They have increased the level of play," he said. "The Hong Kong students don't make fun of them any more."


Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/21/asia/hkstreet.php?page=1

[Ordie]

The attitudes and norms between Hong Kong vs. Mainland are not different than one would compare with urban vs. rural. Technology, travel, media and relationships usually break down these barriers over time.

[egg taco]

Alot of containers have a seal on the lock. It's only open when it get's to the destination.


There's an entire protocol for it w/a paper trail and liability for all concerned.

Who wants to be professionally linked to such a thing? Security is better than most assume in a port due to self-interest of the sailors, longshoremen and their sups .

[matthew.manhorn]

Funny...most people from Hong Kong were orignally from the Mainland a generation or two.

Some mainland Chinese who have immigrated overseas for less than a decade have already looked down at their own communist brain washed-Chinese citizens

[Ordie]

Some mainland Chinese who have immigrated overseas for less than a decade have already looked down at their own communist brain washed-Chinese citizens

It's all relevant, a generational and regional thing.

The younger PRC immigrants and students grew up in a liberal economic society in post 1978 China. They often complain when it comes to business, the US is more Communist than at home with regulations.

The old timers, Pre-1978 immigrants were victims of Communism. They came through either Hong Kong or Taiwan.

Then you have a regional clash.

The Taishan vs. Cantonese vs. Taiwanese, and Mandarin Speakers (and Spanish speaking Chinese from Peru and Mexico). Each arrived at a different era each with thier own challenges.

The Taishan speakers arrived first, working class, had to put up with Chinese exclusion laws and are multi-generational. They built the railroads and were pioneers in fighting the discriminatory system. But they feel slighted by the new arrivals who flash money and view them as peasants.

Taiwanese speakers arrived with money and live at the best suburbs with the best schools. I call them the money flashers.

Mandarin speakers from PRC arrived last trying to fit in. First arrivals are academic. Later arrivals with money. PRC tourist are cheavanist flashing money and talking down on the local Chinese people as backwards.

Chinese Spanish speakers will gravitate towards the larger Latino society.

[LineDoggie]

Why do they want to come to the US? With all the China Strong messages you see in here, I figured that they would be happy staying in China. Infiltrators inside the lines........

[Ordie]

Why do they want to come to the US? With all the China Strong messages you see in here, I figured that they would be happy staying in China.

Pragmatic reasons.

In China you have a single chance for everything (being born, education, career, business and a good life). The odds of 'making it' are hard and failure is a loss of face.

In contrast, the United States is a country of many second chances where one has the freedom to fail. Especially in education.