[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 50 (Tuesday, April 13, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H1898-H1899]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      CHINESE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Guam (Mr. Underwood) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to the House's attention 
again a continuing problem with Chinese illegal immigration in Guam.
  This past Tuesday, on April 6, 82 were apprehended while preparing to 
come on shore. On Wednesday, April 7, nine more Chinese illegal 
immigrants were discovered by a U.S. naval vessel whose permits to work 
on Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, had 
expired, and they had decided to try their luck on Guam and boarded a 
small 18-foot boat bound for Guam.
  On Friday, April 9, 93 illegal immigrants were apprehended as their 
boat ran aground on a reef off of Ritidian Point.
  On Sunday, April 11, 38 suspected illegal immigrants, including two 
women, were caught off of Agat where they arrived on the dilapidated 
wooden boat.
  The number of apprehended Chinese illegal immigrants in Guam caught 
since January of this year is now up to 473. On a per capita basis, 
this would be like 5,000 illegal immigrants washing up on the shores of 
Florida.
  A couple of weeks ago, I informed this body about the criminal and 
inhumane ramifications of this wave of illegal immigrants into Guam. 
The Chinese are smuggled by crime syndicates which charge them anywhere 
from $10,000 to $30,000 each. They set sail in squalid quarters and are 
sometimes abused by their smugglers. They travel over the open seas for 
over 20 days.
  Upon successfully completing the trip, they are made indentured 
servants and have to pay off their debt to the smugglers who brought 
them to the U.S.
  With the arrival this week of almost 200 illegal immigrants, we see 
the rise of other factors in Guam. Guam is undergoing current economic 
crisis caused by the Asian downturn, and we have no basis upon which to 
deal with them. Yet the INS has gone bankrupt and refuses to house 
these illegal immigrants and refuses to process them into the United 
States mainland because they have no funds.
  So the Government of Guam has taken on the responsibility to house 
these illegal immigrants at a cost of

[[Page H1899]]

$97 a day in facilities now holding over 400 occupants when they were 
designed to hold only about 150.
  Unlike other areas inside the U.S. mainland, Guam does not have large 
charitable organizations capable of handling these people. Another 
factor has been the environmental cost of the waves of illegal 
immigrants. The ship which ran into the reef on Friday has leaked fuel 
into Guam's waters, damaging the reef and killing other marine life.
  According to the INS officer in charge on Guam, Mr. David Johnston, 
the waves of illegal immigrants will not stop unless some action is 
taken immediately. What I have suggested through H.R. 945 is to change 
the INA in order not to allow or narrow the gap for claiming political 
asylum in Guam.
  What these Chinese syndicates do is use the political asylum claim on 
Guam in order to further their efforts and to profit from human misery 
and then bring them into the U.S.
  Another thing that we must do is that there is currently a proposal 
in the White House which has not seen complete fruition, and that is to 
form an interagency task force to deal with issues of insular areas. 
This is a critical need. It is important that the White House 
immediately, sometime this week, convene an interagency task force 
meeting involving the Department of Justice, the Department of 
Transportation with the Coast Guard, the Department of Defense and the 
Department of State in order to address this crisis in Guam.

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