Ship Holding Immigrants Monitored

U.S. authorities Thursday monitored a rusting cargo ship carrying 69 suspected Chinese immigrants off Baja California as authorities waited to see if Mexico would handle the repatriation.

Mexican Vice Admiral Armando Sanchez, commander of the Second Naval Zone at Ensenada, said the 157-foot vessel--intercepted Tuesday by the U.S. Coast Guard 30 miles off Ensenada--is of Chinese registry.

The 66 passengers and three crew members are undocumented and appear to be Chinese, Sanchez said. He said the passengers appeared to be in good condition.

The freighter, called the Lapas No. 3, was stopped because it was suspected of smuggling immigrants, a Coast Guard bulletin said.

U.S. immigration officials said most passengers were believed to be from the Chinese province of Fujian, the hub of international smuggling operations that charge immigrants as much as $35,000 apiece for passage to the United States.

Some U.S. officials suspect that the passengers were to be ferried by small boats to a location near Ensenada and sent on to Mexicali, where there is a large Chinese-speaking population, and then cross into the United States by foot.

From there, they were believed to be headed to Los Angeles, but the final destination for most was probably New York, U.S. officials said.

U.S. State Department spokesman Candace Cunningham declined to comment on any negotiations regarding the repatriation of the immigrants to their homeland.

But other U.S. officials said the State Department wanted Mexico to handle their return. In at least one previous case, the United States has picked up the bill for the air fare.

Another option would be to repatriate them through San Diego, but U.S. officials said they would like to avoid that because it could mean lengthy hearings if the immigrants apply for political asylum.

Though there is a new expedited procedure to handle asylum claims, it is being challenged in federal court, and U.S. officials would like to avoid taking any chance that legal procedures could lengthen immigrants’ stay.

“I could just see somebody coming and slapping an injunction on us and then they’d be here as long as they want,” said one U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of ongoing negotiations.

Officials agreed that the decision could take days.

“Mexico doesn’t like being in the position of enforcing U.S. immigration laws,” a Mexican diplomat said. “Imagine us helping the United States detain illegal immigrants from another country. Mexicans, like the Chinese, immigrate to try to find a better life.”

Coast Guard Petty Officer Paul Rhynard said officers were investigating the boat’s seaworthiness, but said it did not appear to be in distress.

“It looks like it’s in decent condition. A little run-down,” Rhynard said. “If it was having trouble, we would have brought it somewhere.”

Fifty-seven passengers are men, 19 of them juveniles; of the 12 females, five are girls, authorities said. The Coast Guard is giving them fresh water and food, Petty Officer Edwin Lyngar said.

International Chinese smuggling rings have brought many boats to Mexican shores in recent years.

Russ Bergeron, the senior INS spokesman in Washington, said the steep fees generally are paid by relatives in the United States.

If the immigrants cannot pay, the smugglers often hold them hostage, or turn them into indentured servants to extort the fee from relatives in the United States and China. Once, he said, smugglers cut off a woman’s finger and sent it to her family demanding money.

“The number of vessels found near the United States has dropped since 1994,” Bergeron said. “Whether this signals a decline of smuggling to the United States is too soon to tell.”