Reply #52: Would that there were one region to consider;

[bridgit]

Smuggling Illegal Chinese Immigrants

Illegal immigrants pay smugglers as much as $60,000 for the trip from China to New York or some other destination in the United States. A fake business visa may cost $50,000. A fake marriage to an American costs $70,000. Snakeheads in Fujian charge between $10,000 and $20,000 for passage to Japan and between $40,000 and $70,000 to the United States. The fee for Hungary is $12,000. Illegal immigrants have paid $19,000 to $30,000 to be smuggled to Britain via Myanmar and Brazil and $45,000 for other routes into Britain.

Most migrants have no difficulty paying the fees, which are regarded as investments. Families and relatives pool their money together and send the best male candidate abroad with hopes for big payoffs in the future. Once a method to get overseas is worked out and the debt is paid off, money is pooled again to get additional family members over.

Many Chinese immigrants start in Fuzhou or other coastal towns in Fujian Province. From there they are sent by freighter, by air with false visas or hidden in cargo containers. People who get caught often claim asylum. Some say they are members of the Falun Gong. Some women say they are fleeing forced sterilization. The asylum process can sometimes last for years. In that times they work and make babies.

For several thousand dollars visa-consulting companies will help Chinese get visas to the United States. The companies prepare business cards and paperwork for fake computer companies, coach applicants for their interviews with U.S. embassy officials, and help them take steps to get a green card once in the United States. Those that enter this way typically enter with a tourist visa and overstay their visa.

The illegal immigrant trade is not without its risks and unscrupulous entrepreneurs. In September 2003 thirteen people were arrested in Fuzhou and Putian cities in Fujian Province after six Chinese women drowned after they were thrown overboard from a boat smuggling them from China to Taiwan.

Chinese stowaways discovered on a large fishing boat with a Taiwanese crew had been beaten by the crew, used as slaves, forced into group masturbation sessions and forced to have oral sex and anal intercourse. One of the Chinese men on the boat said he was forced to do all this after paying $26,000 for what he thought was an airplane ticket to the U.S. Others were forced to sign an IOU in blood for $20,000.

http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=1034&catid=5&subcatid=29#10

"Chiquita and Coca Cola and Bechtel and Exxon have. Do these names sound familiar to anybody?" How can they not firstly, aside from being Hallmark jokers in the same deck of bent-eared cards that no one shuffles they just keep dealing from hand after hand; they are elements able to comprise the myopic vision used to exalt South American Socialism as sacrosanct and beyond reproach. While looking right past the oligarchs of Brazilia, the filthy old Mayflower money, the handed down family names of The Middle Kingdom and anyone and everyone else abusing the workers of the world and oh by the way they are legion

You can go down to the Adante on Geary and watch & listen to new chamber maid - what? Workers? New American "illegal" chamber maids? New soon-to-be naturalized American citizens? New "illegals" period? New protesters protesting in favor of undocumented access to higher education the UC system, social and ER services - and all with their attorneys in tow filing law suit after law suit after law suit? Maybe it doesn't matter till they count out the change wrong. But to suggest America isn't providing these options even to people without any inclination to pursue documented status; is to look right past the viciously violent drug cartels every bit as likely driving the same people out of their homes with their pernicious, addictive behaviors

I do think the issue is much larger than the Socialist agenda of South America and the Caribbean, much larger. With many other contributors than the, granted, sometime ill-effects of America and her trade policy