Arizona Desert a Major Avenue for Smuggled Chinese

The New York Times reports that the number of undocumented Chinese migrants crossing the Sonora desert into the United States has dramatically increased in recent months. Compared to the 30 Chinese migrants caught crossing the Tucson sector of the U.S- Mexico border during the 2008 fiscal year, 332 Chinese immigrants were arrested in the same area during the  2009 fiscal year. In only the first quarter of the 2010 fiscal year, 281 Chinese immigrants have already been apprehended in the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector.

Although the Sonora Desert is known for its scorching summers and frigid winters, the area has long been a route into the United States for undocumented immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries. The recent surge in unauthorized Chinese immigrants is due in part to the lucrative nature of the business.

In comparison to undocumented immigrants from Mexico who pay $1,500 to $3,000 on averaged to be smuggled to the United States, Chinese immigrants commonly pay smugglers around $40,000 each. These Chinese migrants pay a deposit of $5,000 to $10,000 before leaving China. If the immigrants make it to the United States they begin paying the smugglers the remainder of the cost.  As drug trafficking and smuggling other nationalities of migrants has become less desirable due to the increased risk, smugglers have begun to focus on the more profitable smuggling of Chinese immigrants into the United States.

Border officials suspect that the smuggling of Chinese citizens through the Mexican- American border is a transcontinental operation because it is so intricate. On most occasions, Chinese immigrants fly from Beijing to Rome, board a plane to Caracas, Venezuela, fly to Mexico City and work their way up to the northern border and into the United States. Another common route takes these unauthorized migrants to Cuba, then flies them to the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and then takes them north into the United States. Although the Arizona border is a treacherous and deadly path, crossing into the Arizona desert area is the path of choice because the smuggling infrastructure is already in place.

Many of the Chinese immigrants apprehended at the border are from Fujian Province, in southeast China. These immigrants cite the lack of education and employment opportunities as the reason they choose to travel around the globe to reach the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/us/23smuggle.html

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