U.S. Tracks Suspected Smuggling Ship

Two Coast Guard cutters Monday were pursuing a 180-foot vessel suspected of carrying an undetermined number of illegal Chinese immigrants in waters 240 miles west-southwest of the international border, federal officials said.

Representatives of the Coast Guard and the Immigration and Naturalization Service were unable to identify the origin or flag of the vessel, named Jin Yinn 1, which was spotted Saturday by a C-130 aircraft on routine patrol, Coast Guard spokesman Trent Jones said. By Monday, the vessel had turned west and was not stopping or answering radio communications, Jones said.

Last year, an increasing number of Chinese smuggling boats landed along the California coast and in Baja California, where illegal immigrants disembarked and crossed the border by land. The surge culminated in July, when the Coast Guard intercepted three crowded smuggling vessels off the Baja coast, after a 10-day impasse, turned them over to the Mexican Navy.

In what Mexican officials described as a humanitarian gesture, Mexico agreed to accept and repatriate the 658 Chinese immigrants after the Clinton Administration requested help as part of a tough new policy against seagoing illegal immigration.