28 April 1998
(In Vienna 4/27 Winer also discusses alien smuggling) (3580) Vienna -- Jonathan Winer, deputy assistant secretary of state for law enforcement and crime in the State Department's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, spoke here April 27 on efforts to curb the smuggling of illegal aliens and the trafficking in women and children. Winer spoke to an audience of Austrian government officials and representatives of non-government and international organizations attending the Amerika Haus Forum on Transnational Crimes, sponsored in cooperation with United Nations systems organizations in Vienna. Several hundred thousand illegal migrants are moved by international criminal smuggling syndicates from their countries of origin to Western Europe and the United States alone, Winer said, noting that according to UN estimates, Chinese smugglers alone earn up to $3.5 billion annually in this evil trade. "Trafficking organizations operate with near impunity, as alien smuggling is a crime in only a few recipient countries and penalties are minimal," he said. And while some believe it is a victimless crime, "the reality is that migrants are often subjected to inhumane or dangerous treatment and in the case of the Chinese especially, to extreme forms of violence. Migrants die from suffocation, abandonment, accidents, or brutality by smugglers." Winer suggested ways to target the main players and elements in the alien smuggling business, such as corrupt officials, weak institutions, counterfeit documents, and ports of entry. He pointed out that the United States has made changes in its laws and policies over the past five years. "We have changed our immigration and asylum procedures to increase criminal penalties for alien smuggling and to make it easier to send those who have come to our country illegally back to their homes." The United States is also working with the European Union, the International Organization of Migration, the United Nations, and other organizations "to develop international cooperation against the traffickers, whose organizations transcend all of our national borders, because in a transnational world, no country can defend its own borders or its people, however big or small, without the cooperation of the entire world," Winer said. Following is the text of Winer's remarks: (Note: In the following text, "billion" equals 1,000 million.) (Begin text) ORGANIZED CRIME: SMUGGLING OF ILLEGAL ALIENS AND TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Jonathan M. Winer April 27, 1998 Amerika Haus Vienna The Nature of Alien Smuggling The push and pull of migration has always been with us, driven by political, social and economic factors as old as human history. One of my grandfathers came to the United States from Kiev as an infant, hidden from immigration officials in a potato sack. To this day, the affluence of the United States, like that of the European Union countries, remains a tremendous draw for people all over the world seeking opportunity. But there is a difference between the Ellis Island "give me your huddled masses" immigration of the past and today's alien smuggling epidemic. And the difference is the evolution of illegal migration into a business, the smuggling of persons, that simultaneously violates the human rights of the smuggled and corrupts basic governmental institutions wherever they transit. How big a problem is trafficking in illegal migrants? Our estimates are that each year easily several hundred thousand illegal migrants are being moved by international criminal smuggling syndicates from their countries of origin to Western Europe and the United States alone. How much money is involved? United Nations studies have estimated that Chinese smugglers alone earn up to $3.5 billion annually. Nearly standard fees for various nationalities range from a few hundred dollars for Central American up to $35,000 to $40,000 for Chinese. A down payment is normally made before departure, with the remainder due to the smugglers upon completion of the journey. Funds come primarily from persons in developed countries -- either relatives or prospective employers -- and repayment is made by the migrant by working, often in sweatshop conditions, from criminal activities, or on some occasions the migrants may be held for ransom by criminal gangs. Trafficking organizations operate with near impunity, as alien smuggling is a crime in only a few recipient countries and penalties are minimal. In Central America, for example, alien smugglers have until recently operated openly, since only Honduras and Panama had anti-smuggling laws in place. The same has been true in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Newly Independent States. These countries understand the need to improve training, enact anti-smuggling legislation or amend existing statutes, and to cooperate with other governments, especially destination countries, in order to stem the tide of illegal migration to and through their lands. In some areas, such as Western Europe and Southeast Asia, the same criminal organizations may traffic in migrants and narcotics. In other areas, alien smugglers avoid other criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, for which they would risk prosecution and stiff penalties. Alien smuggling is made possible by staggering levels of official corruption. In Belize, the director and deputy director of migration were arrested for corruption involving alien smuggling; immigration directors in Guatemala, Honduras and the Dominican Republic were replaced for the same reason. The United States is not immune from corruption. Our most senior immigration official in Central America, Jerry Stuchiner, pled guilty in the summer of 1996 to charges in connection with a passport and visa scheme he was working between Honduras and Hong Kong. Poorly trained and paid immigration inspectors and border guards are easily bribed to assist smuggled aliens who are "only passing through." As alien smuggling organizations are ethnically based, migrants then disappear into ethnic communities. Some law enforcement authorities are reluctant to dedicate resources to alien smuggling cases because they perceive alien smuggling as a victimless crime. Unfortunately, the reality is that migrants are often subjected to inhumane or dangerous treatment and in the case of the Chinese especially, to extreme forms of violence. Migrants die from suffocation, abandonment, accidents, or brutality by smugglers. Globally, the pipeline to the United States today stretches from Asia, across Europe, and through Central America and the Caribbean to the United States. It involves large numbers of Chinese, South Asians, and Latin Americans, as well as persons from countries disrupted by natural disasters, political turmoil, and war. The pipeline to Europe includes nationals from East Asian and Middle East countries who flow into the Balkans, such as the Former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria, and then on into Romania, Hungary and Ukraine to the Czech Republic and Poland, from where they depart to EU countries such as Austria, Italy and Germany. One route for Chinese nationals involves travel by air directly from Thailand or Hong Kong or over land from Russia, then to Poland, then the EU or the U.S. Whatever the pipeline's route, it remains under the control of smugglers who vary by geographic area and national identity, and includes both individual operators and sophisticated international smuggling rings. Migrants are passed along a chain that often involves a number of smugglers, safe houses, transit points, and varied means of travel. For some, the trip can be accomplished quickly by commercial air. For those with limited funds, the journey can take years of hardship and danger. Examples of the Trade The trade is truly a remarkable evil, exploited by governments that are desperate, as well as by people who are desperate. Austria has no problem obtaining hard currency, but some its neighbors may. Certainly the United States' neighbor Cuba needs hard currency. Perhaps that is why Cuban smuggling of aliens through commercial air flights from Central and South American cities continues to increase. U.S. immigration and consular officials report that the Cubans are using photo substituted passports with valid U.S. visas from such countries as Venezuela, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, Guatemala, Chile, and the Dominican Republic. Any kind of hard currency will do if you are willing to take the ancient trade routes used by Genghis Khan and his hordes. Hardy and desperate Pakistani migrants transit Western China, Kazakhstan, and Tashkent on their way to Europe, on routes also used to smuggle narcotics and stolen cars, facilitated by corrupt, but not terribly expensive, officials every step of the way. In historic downtown Prague, there is a certain Chinese restaurant with only eight tables, indifferent food, and few repeat patrons. But it is so successful, it employs over 800 persons, none of whom are Czech, with new Chinese employees signing on every week on their way to new culinary adventures further west. In Warsaw, an athletic organization called the Achilles Track Club sends supposedly disabled athletes to attend sports events in the United States and Canada: amputees and diabetics arrive in groups of four, seven and eight, and then disappear, leaving behind their temporary wheel chairs, temporary names, and temporary addresses. In Vladivostok, Russia, there are literally tens of thousands of Chinese migrants awaiting processing for Moscow on the way to Western Europe and North America. Russian police say the Chinese population there fears its own gangs far more than it does the Russian ones. The Russians merely rob, while the Chinese also torture, persecute, and take revenge on those who do not have the money to pay for the onward journey. Meanwhile, some 40,000 South Asians, predominately Indians, are in Russia, awaiting transportation to Scandinavia and Germany, on their way to the rest of the EU. Exotic tortures of illegal migrants are not limited to those unfortunates who remain adrift in distant lands. Last year, in Seattle, Washington, alien smugglers kidnapped three minor children who had been smuggled previously into the United States. They demanded money from their parents in China. Simultaneously, a Chinese businessman and two women in New York were kidnapped by the same criminal organizations for ransom. The Seattle kidnappings ended with the freeing of the children, but not before the young girl was repeatedly raped by her captors. The New York extortions ended with the businessman shot in the head but recovering, one woman found hanged and with a finger cut off, and the other woman found alive, minus several fingers, and also sexually assaulted. This is a nasty business indeed, enforced by vicious people. And the trade becomes, if anything, even worse when it is applied to women and children. While the traditional trade in migrants has tended to involve economic migrants who are seeking work, or political migrants who are fleeing from insecure, unsafe, or life-threatening social environments, the traffic in women and children involves people who have been deemed socially marginal or of low value in their own societies, who are exploited for their "high-value" as victims of people's desires in other societies that have failed to protect them. The trafficking in women and children differs in some important respects from other migrant trafficking. When a Chinese from Fujian province decides to leave China for the West, there may or may not be a job awaiting, there may or may not be an economic "pull" to fuel the trade. Often, the pull is nothing stronger than the affluence of the nation the Chinese seeks as his destination. But the "appetite" for women who are trafficked is real. The demand for them, like the demand of pedophiles for young children, is also real. And these demands have created profound social evils, ruining the lives of the trafficked, corrupting officials in the process, and creating tremendous demands on social service networks to boot. There are important elements of other migrant trafficking replicated in this traffic, but with this key distinction: the specific demand that places a "high value" on people who are otherwise given a "low value," is a critical distinction, that I will discuss further in a few minutes. TARGETING THE ELEMENTS The key elements in the alien smuggling business are the following: -- People who are willing to give up everything to move to another country illegally. Such people will always be with us. Can you target them? Yes, but you will have different results depending on the reasons they are migrating. Economic migrants may be the hardest to dissuade: They are looking for a better life, and if they can get to your country, it is probably available to them. Enforcement activities directed at reducing their chance of getting in, and their likelihood of getting caught even when they are inside, are the best chance you have of deterring them. Well-publicized repatriations can also have an impact. Political migrants, the refugees of war or civic strife, will stop emigrating, and may even return, if you have provided them the foundation for decent civil society, justice, and security in their home. Thus, developing universal norms for the administration of justice and for public security, backed up through implementation assisted by the most developed countries, remains an integral long-term strategy for discouraging political migration. This approach is evident today in Albania, and will remain a core component of stemming trafficking from Bosnia and its neighbors. Women and children who are subject to being trafficked need to be warned ahead of time through public affairs campaigns and provided victims services after they have been trafficked. Both elements are essential to build the understanding necessary to stem the trade. -- People who recruit illegal migrants to travel halfway around the world. Can you target them? Only if the source country is willing to cooperate. Which are the sources? Most importantly, China, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, for the economic migrants. In each of these source countries, the problem is twofold: first, one of political will; second, one of capability. Which of these countries has a central government that actually controls the major ports from which the migrants leave? In countries torn by civic strife, smuggling of all kinds is endemic, as is corruption. To go after the criminal organizations based in such countries, you have to restore the foundations of civil society. Places like Haiti, Bosnia, or Central Africa are breeding grounds for every form of criminal until the possibility of justice becomes routine, instead of extraordinary. Those who recruit women and children are perhaps the easiest of the traffickers to target. They are vulnerable, because what they are doing violates the social norms of the very communities where they are doing the recruiting. The truth, if made visible, is a powerful weapon against them. An international policy of zero tolerance for such traffickers, and of international cooperation against them, can have a major impact. -- Corrupt officials in transit countries. Yes, they, too, will always be with us. But you can target them, through diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement actions, private and public. Corrupt officials move migrants. They provide passports, visas, citizenships, and safe transit. Hollywood, for once, had it right in Casablanca. Claude Rains was willing to move people from Casablanca, or not, on the basis of hard cold cash and political expediency. In most countries, a smuggler's payoff for passage of one small cluster of migrants would quadruple a border agent's monthly wage. Asset forfeiture laws can provide resources for governments to pay their officials by levying directly upon the criminal's resources, eliminating the criminal's previous role as paymaster. -- Weak institutions in transit countries. Can you target them? Yes. Assistance and exchange programs can build capability. This is especially true when countries begin to feel themselves vulnerable to injury as a result of transiting migrants. Today, an increasing number of transit countries find they are becoming host countries to thousands who simply stop there and impose a real burden on them. They want better laws to protect themselves, and they want to find ways to keep the illegals out of their countries. Institution building against alien smuggling is not only possible, but essential. The criminalization of alien smuggling in all countries, as Austria has recommended in its resolution before the United Nations, is a major, urgent goal that would have a substantial impact in increasing the risks for the traffickers. But it has to be followed by an implementation strategy that results in actual disruptions of criminal organizations, through international law enforcement cooperation. -- Counterfeit documents. Can you target them? Absolutely. The destination countries can and should make their own document requirements state-of-the-art, and then export those standards everywhere, providing such technical support as transit countries require to make it workable, including tough controls on passport issuance. -- Ports of entry in transit countries. Can you target them? Again, no question. Part of this is targeting the corruption problem. In the Dominican Republic under former President Ballaguer, whenever the United States expressed concern about alien smuggling problems at its seven major airports, we found the situation suddenly and dramatically improved, at least for a few months. Similar, documented complaints by the U.S. Embassy and State Department ended a people-smuggling operation involving Cubana Airlines and Belize recently. Corruption is not the only problem, of course. Even governments with officials of goodwill may not have very developed security regimens at ports. They need to receive training and assistance in implementing state-of-the-art airport and seaport security of the kind that U.S. Customs and Immigration have developed here. -- Permissive legal systems in transit countries. Can you target them? Yes, and you can change them. Criminalizing alien smuggling with serious penalties attached is an essential element of combating the trade. Because the aliens hurt the countries they transit, transit countries are increasingly willing to criminalize, especially if donor countries are willing to provide aid to those who do. -- Boats at sea carrying migrants. Can you target them? Yes. We do. But we need an international system for holding the migrants when we or other governments stop the boats, and to ensure the punishment of the smugglers back home. Recently, we advised Taiwan that we would send Taiwanese boat captains back to China for processing in the future, since previously Taiwan had simply released them upon return. -- Weak border controls at destination countries. Ultimately, every destination country has to strengthen its own capabilities to combat the trade. We cannot have laws that encourage illegals to think everything will work out when they arrive. -- Inadequate international enforcement efforts against the criminal organizations. Because the alien smugglers operate transnationally, it is essential to take them out transnationally, not limiting enforcement to stopping those at the end of the pipeline. This requires gathering intelligence and disrupting the organizations and their infrastructure through law enforcement and interdiction operations, and when appropriate, through diplomatic demarche, and public stigmatization of those who refuse to cooperate. -- Defense in depth. The European experience of World War I should remain a reminder that a Maginot Line at a border cannot substitute for defense in depth. No nation can defend its borders purely through any system of control at the border alone. It has to have intelligence on what is happening beyond its borders, cooperation from officials in other countries on what is coming to its borders, thorough preparations at its borders, and finally, some system for checking on what is taking place within its borders. The Schengen system may be the most modern, sophisticated, and high-tech system for keeping track of travelers without the right to enter the Schengen area. But it imposes an extraordinary burden on the governments of Schengen to respond to the problem of those who will go around the Schengen first line of defense. Somehow, the Schengen area will have to evolve a strategy for defense in depth, that respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, without ignoring the reality that borders are porous. The U.S. Response As a country with porous borders and a huge migrant trafficking problem, the U.S. has had to make a number of changes to its laws and its policies over the past five years, as the Clinton administration has responded to the increased legal trade that has accompanied the North American Free Trade Area. We have changed our immigration and asylum procedures to increase criminal penalties for alien smuggling and to make it easier to send those who have come to our country illegally back to their homes. -- We have begun public information campaigns in source countries to explain the hazards of being trafficked to potential migrants, including campaigns specifically targeting women in Central Europe. -- We have taken action against foreign officials known to be implicated in alien smuggling by revoking or denying their visas. -- We have worked with transit countries to assist them in drafting legislation to criminalize and target alien smuggling, and to provide them with training in how to disrupt criminal organizations engaged in smuggling people. -- We have worked to harden ourselves as a target, improving our passports and visas, adding new databases at our borders that have more information from our law enforcement agencies on criminals who might be seeking to enter the U.S. and by moving more towards "defense in depth," placing more immigration officials overseas to develop relationships with counterparts that will enable them to bust criminal organizations, and to counter corruption. -- And we are working with the European Union, the International Organization of Migration, the UN and other organizations to develop international cooperation against the traffickers, whose organizations transcend all of our national borders, because in a transnational world, no country can defend its own borders or its people, however big or small, without the cooperation of the entire world. Thank you. (End text)