One of 44 Chinese illegal immigrants stopped and routed to the United States by the Coast Guard.
This summer, police in Donna, Texas, captured a group of illegal immigrants who were resting happily in a local hotel. Far from your run of the mill border jumpers, the six men and five women were well clothed, in good health, and had US currency. They were Chinese.
Each year about 100,000 Chinese aliens are smuggled into the United States. They are part of the growing flood of (other than Mexicans) traffic, slipping across the borders.
From 2001 through the first half of 2005, the some of 605,210 aliens were arrested for immigration violations. Such as the Chinese that often arrive by commercial jet or boat and are not stereotypical; immigrants. They are financially secure or even wealthy.
Well to do Chinese can pay up to $45,000 to fly directly into the United States with a case of expensive, foreign documents.
Less fortunate Chinese mix in with the Mexicans and Latin’s Americans coming across American’s porous Southwest borders. Their trip from China to the United States can take up to two years and may cost as much as $35,000.
Trying to send illegal back to China is very expensive and time consuming, assuming China takes them back. The Chinese are the largest population we have difficulty in returning. Secretary of Homeland Security has an agreement in principle for the two countries to resolve the backlog, but it has yet to yield results.
Of the 40,000 illegal Chinese immigrants that Washington currently wants to send packing, China took back only 522 in the past year. Over the last Five years, the Department of homeland Security has managed to deport only 2,580 Chinese nationals. By international agreement, countries must take back their nationals. China follows what it calls a checking first policy, meaning the United States must prove that Taiwanese are not mixed in before illegal will be accepted back into China. Even if China agrees to take all of its illegal back today, it’s far from certain that all of them will be found. Only about 50% of those 40,000 illegal Chinese immigrants are in jail or available for rounding up and deporting.
The cost of illegal immigration continues to mount, each Chinese held in a federal detention facility costs the US taxpayers $95 per day.
