Speech #1060017511

Madam Speaker. I take this opportunity to speak to one issue which is of some national significance because it evidences a pattern that is occurring. and that is illegal immigration from China. I would like to point out that. Madam Speaker. that Guam is a very isolated community from Washington. DC. It is some 9.000 miles away and it is the closest U.S. soil to China. During the past year. there has been an inordinate amount of illegal immigration into Guam from China. and we assumed that it was from perhaps nearby the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas. but as it has turned out these are illegal immigrants who come in on fishing boats directly from the Province of Fuqing inside China. This kind of illegal immigration is not the kind of illegal immigration that we normally assume exists. which is that people are fleeing either for political reasons or looking for an economic better way of life. All of those might be part of this. but usually when we watch the kinds of things that occur on our southern border or perhaps some of the illegal immigration which is coming from Haiti or in the Caribbean Sea. other parts of the Caribbean Sea. we witness people who are risking life and limb in order to better themselves economically. If they are successful. they go on and live their lives as members of individual families and indeed frequently find a better way of life. In this case. what we have is an illegal stream of immigrants that is primarily orchestrated by criminal organizations inside China commonly referred to as "snakeheads." Last year. and Guam last a very small population. it is estimated that over 700 arrived through this manner and since the beginning of this year alone there has already been 254. and some 97 were simply apprehended off the coast of Guam. in Agat. last weekend. What these people undergo is that they pay anywhere from $10.000 to $30.000 for the privilege of being put in a fishing boat usually under a hundred feet and there may be as many as 200 or 300 of them inside this fishing boat. Then they are taken out in the open ocean and they arrive on Guam. and they usually try to come in on small boats so we do not know what exactly the dynamics of the stream is like. If they are caught. they immediately ask for political asylum. If they are successful in this. and they invariably are. they then enter a period of what can only be termed as indentured servitude for these snakehead organizations for the next 10 to 20 years. probably working below the minimum wage in some underground economy inside this country. So this problem. and the use of political asylum on Guam. and claims to political asylum by these illegal immigrants. do not necessarily benefit the immigrants themselves but is part of a well constructed. well organized criminal activity that is orchestrated from inside China in the Fuqing province. The Peoples Republic of China themselves are embarrassed by this. as I understand it. These are criminal organizations that are acting on their own.