27 March 2006
Homeland Security Chief To Discuss Illegal Migration on Asia Trip
Chertoff says cooperation vital to control smuggling, illegal immigration
By Jane Morse
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- On his first visit to Asia as the secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff plans to tackle the issue of illegal immigration and human smuggling.
At a March 23 meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan membership organization, in New York, Chertoff said the problem demands cooperation from the international community and from countries where migrants originate. He said that much progress has been made so far in persuading some countries to take back their citizens who have come to the United States illegally.
Chertoff, who will visit China, Japan and Singapore March 24-30, acknowledged that, in the last year, land border security has become "the most emotionally dominant issue" in the U.S. media.
"People rightly are disturbed by the notion that we do not have control over the borders," he said. "And in a post-9/11 environment, we have to make sure we're able to concentrate our focus on keeping national security and criminal threats out of this country."
There are an estimated 8 million to 12 million illegal migrants currently living in the United States, he said.
China, which is both a sending and destination country for thousands of illegal migrants, shares a common interest with the United States on this issue, Chertoff said. He said he hoped to discuss with his counterparts in China ways to cooperate in speeding up the repatriation process for illegal Chinese immigrants.
"I think if we eliminate some bottlenecks and some procedural issues, we can make a lot of progress," he said.
Criminal smuggling organizations frequently aid aliens who are smuggled into the United States from China, Chertoff said.
"(L)et's not kid ourselves," he said. "These smuggling organizations are not humanitarian organizations; they are anti-humanitarian organizations. They extort the people that they bring in; often they leave them to die in the desert or in containers. They rob them of every penny that they have in order to secure passage. And in many instances, they keep them in indentured servitude, if not outright slavery, for years after they get into this country."
The secretary said he had a special interest in working with Chinese authorities to target and eliminate human smuggling organizations.
He acknowledged that the problem is difficult to solve because most of the migrants who cross the U.S. border illegally are coming for economic reasons.
"[T]he fact of the matter is, if we don't address that demand in an intelligent fashion, we are eliminating one of the critical tools that would allow us to focus on the ‘bad actors’ who come in," he said. "We cannot fight the wave of economic demand that is pulling people in."
The United States wants to ensure that captured illegal migrants are returned to their countries of origin, the secretary said. When they are detained for lengthy periods, illegal immigrants are a drain on the country's financial resources, he added.
Chertoff said President Bush continues to support a temporary worker program that will focus U.S. resources on "people that we really want to keep out," suspected terrorists.
At the same time, he said, the Bush administration is seeking to increase visas "for people who bring intellectual capital to the table, and for people who have unique skills.
"The fact of the matter is, we will lose the war against terror if we don't foster and encourage that greatest tool, which is the ingenuity of free-thinking minds in developing the kind of steps that allow us to stay a step ahead of the bad guys," he said.
For more information on U.S. policy, see: East Asia and the Pacific, Chinese Human Smuggling, Visas and Passports.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
