Mexico Begins Repatriating Chinese Emigres

Mexican authorities launched a massive high-security operation Saturday to deport more than 400 Chinese emigres who arrived here aboard two captured smuggling vessels shortly before daybreak.

But a third vessel remained in international waters under Coast Guard custody, Mexican officials said, citing unspecified problems. According to sources on both sides of the border, some of those on the vessel were resisting a U.S.-Mexican agreement to transfer them into the custody of the Mexican Navy.

The deportation of the emigres began at dawn Saturday, when a fleet of buses and federal police cars with flashing lights rumbled out of the fog-shrouded, heavily guarded port.

The prisoners aboard the buses were fleeting apparitions visible through the windows: young men with hands bound in plastic manacles, ponytailed women hiding their faces from photographers. As the convoy sped along the coastal highway heading to the Tijuana airport, a stout Mexican youth mopping the entrance of a roadside rest stop looked up.

“There go the Chinese,” he said. “Poor Chinese.”

By 9 a.m. Saturday, 120 emigres were airborne after being herded off the buses onto a China-bound jet at Abelardo L. Rodriguez International Airport. As the plane took off from the border airport, they got a brief glimpse of the United States--their ultimate destination when they boarded the smuggling boats three months ago.

The clandestine journey of the 658 Chinese became known worldwide after the Coast Guard held three crowded, decrepit smuggling vessels at sea for 10 days until Mexico agreed to deport the passengers.

The deportees were among more than 400 people taken into custody early Saturday when Mexican navy boats met two of the smuggling vessels inside the Mexican territorial line and escorted them into the Ensenada harbor.

Keenly aware of the international attention on the Chinese emigres, Mexican authorities set up a massive, secretive, military-style operation intended to repatriate them as quickly as possible. An equally important goal was avoiding the tragedies and violence that have recurred in incidents involving Chinese emigres, such as an embarrassing escape by more than 100 prisoners from guards at the Mexicali airport this year.

The first boat to arrive in Ensenada Saturday, the fishing trawler Long Sen, docked at 3:15 a.m. in the glare of intense floodlights. Helicopters hovered overhead.

When the emigres took their first shaky steps on land, they were met by a contingent of helmeted Mexican troops armed with rifles, immigration inspectors, doctors, federal highway police, interpreters and agents of Grupo Beta, an elite border police unit created to protect migrants.

About 800 law enforcement officers and other personnel took part in all, including state and local police deployed along the route to Tijuana and around the airport.

There were no escape attempts or other incidents, officials said. Many emigres were described as sick or weakened by debilitating weeks at sea, adrift far from a country they do not want and between two countries that do not want them. Their plan had been to land at Baja California, then cross by land into the United States.

“In general, they were able to disembark without assistance,” said nurse Rosa Guadalupe Alvarez, who examined 12 of about 30 women passengers. In addition to exhaustion, Alvarez said, their faces showed “surprise, sadness. I think they were very sad.”

The group consisted mainly of young, humbly dressed men, said Jorge Medina Viedas, chief spokesman for the Mexican Interior Ministry.

“They seemed like very poor people,” Medina said. “They seemed worn out, but they were conversing among themselves.”

Upon their arrival, the 12 crewmen of the Long Sen were arrested on smuggling charges, as were the crew of the second boat, the To Chin. The boats were confiscated.

The rest of the emigres were being housed temporarily in a warehouse at the Ensenada port. A second group of more than 100 left Saturday night for the airport on five buses, according to the Associated Press, which said another group was still at the pier and was expected to be processed today.

Twenty-four Mexican police guards and a Chinese diplomat accompanied the first planeload of deportees bound for China via Barbados, Senegal and the United Arab Emirates. They flew on an Air Gambia 707, according to AP.

Complications persisted with the third boat, the disabled freighter Sing Li, and its 237 passengers. It remained in Coast Guard custody just outside the Mexican territorial line, Mexican officials said.

Medina blamed the delay on technical difficulties and said it was not clear when the problem would be resolved. The U.S. State Department and the Coast Guard declined comment.

There were reports that the smuggling vessel’s crew and passengers were resisting entreaties to surrender to the Mexicans, according to sources on both sides of the border.

In announcing their actions Wednesday, Mexican diplomats stated that they were interceding purely on humanitarian grounds and would not enter international waters to detain smuggling boats. The U.S. Coast Guard is intercepting suspected smugglers on the high seas as part of a new offensive against illegal immigration by boat.

The tense drama of the emigres caused a stir in Mexico, putting a country with a longtime tradition of immigration to the United States in the curious position of taking a hard line against immigrants. An official communique issued Friday stated that Mexico intends to “stand up to this migratory phenomenon provoked by illicit activity of criminal organizations that traffic in human beings.”

On the streets of this sedate port city, however, there were expressions of sympathy for the plight of “los Chinos” and curiosity about the phalanx of reporters and photographers drawn to the event from around the world.

In keeping with tight secrecy imposed by the United States and Mexico, authorities refused to allow the press to see the emigres come ashore, citing reasons of “national security.” They also denied a request to interview the Chinese arrivals made by Baja California human rights advocates, who have criticized the two governments for failing to properly screen the emigres for potential political asylum claims.

The United States has accepted only one immigrant who petitioned for asylum while aboard ship, rejecting 58 cases reviewed with the assistance of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.