A Human Tide : Chinese Smugglers, Yakuza Flood Japan With Illegal Migrants

Japan is awash in boat people.

Japanese law enforcement has been stunned by a sudden influx of illegal immigrants, mainly Chinese, Koreans, Pakistanis and other Asians who arrive in rickety fishing boats and sneak ashore in the middle of the night on deserted coastlines in western Japan.

Police blame a new alliance between Chinese “snakeheads,” members of syndicates that specialize in smuggling illegal immigrants into lucrative labor markets, and Japanese yakuza gangsters.

The snakeheads have been known to charge as much as $25,000, cash in advance, to sneak job seekers into Japan, where low unemployment rates and high salaries have created ideal conditions for low-wage undocumented workers.

Their yakuza partners scout out quiet landing sites and use walkie-talkies to help guide the boat people safely ashore, police said. Buses or trucks are waiting to whisk them off to the cities, where they quickly find jobs in the underground economy.

Now, police say, the syndicates have come up with a hot new marketing technique: charge as little as $2,000 cash down, and collect the rest from the immigrant’s family once the worker has landed safely in Japan. Clients who get nabbed by immigration officials don’t have to pay--and many more customers can afford to take the gamble.

Business is booming. So far this year, Japanese officials have arrested at least 692 people who arrived on 28 boats, beating last year’s record in less than two months.

In the past week alone, at least five boatloads of illegal migrants have landed, yielding 114 arrests and triggering a nationwide manhunt for about 140 Chinese still believed to be at large. Police have also captured seven suspected snakeheads

“There are so many of these cases every day, I can’t even keep straight what prefecture they’re from,” said Yuichi Motoyama, spokesman for the Japan Maritime Safety Agency. “It’s chaos.”

The new boat people are believed to pose no national security threat. But they do serve as an unpleasant reminder of one of Tokyo’s worst nightmares: the prospect that political or economic turmoil in Pyongyang might one day launch thousands of hungry North Koreans in boats headed toward Japan.

Though still small-scale in comparison with the United States’ illegal immigration problem, the number of foreigners living illegally in Japan has soared in recent years from an estimated 160,000 in 1991 to 285,000 today, according to Japanese immigration authorities. Most are people who arrived on tourist or student visas and never left. (Japan also has about 1.3 million legal foreign residents, about 1% of the population.)

Since 1990, it has been a crime for a Japanese employer to hire an illegal immigrant. Smugglers of undocumented workers also face a year in jail. Immigration agents have begun raiding construction sites, pig and chicken farms, and restaurants where many of the foreign workers find jobs. While authorities have doubled the pace of deportations, they still managed to oust only 4,650 illegal immigrants in 1995.

The vast majority of illegal job seekers arrive via plane--and more are getting caught at Narita International Airport near Tokyo with stolen or forged travel documents, said Nobuhiko Futamura, head of security for the national Immigration Bureau.

But the recent invasion by fishing boat has sparked a major immigration scare. Law enforcement officials have begun to openly beg Japanese diplomats to pressure China and South Korea to crack down on their smugglers of immigrants. To stem the tide, police patrolling depopulated areas of Japan have enlisted fishermen to report all foreign-looking ships. Signs on remote beaches urge citizens to call police if they spot suspicious boats or people.

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Japan’s Boat People

Numbers of boats seized and illegal immigrants arrested:

BOATS

1990: 1

1991: 4

1992: 14

1993: 7

1994: 13

1995: 13

1996: 29

1997*: 28

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ARRESTS

1990: 18

1991: 89

1992: 396

1993: 335

1994: 467

1995: 324

1996: 679

1997*: 692

* Note: 1997 data are as of Feb. 25. Figures reflect groups of illegal immigrants arriving by boat, apprehended by police or the Japan Maritime Safety Agency.

Source: Japan National Police Agency