Thread: Asked to Smuggle? Beware

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Asked to smuggle? Beware
Border police on alert for illegal immigrants

January 3, 2006

BY DAVID ASHENFELTER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Since May, about 12 people have been arrested at the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, above, or Ambassador Bridge on immigrant-smuggling charges. (November 2005 photo by ERIC SEALS/Detroit Free Pre)
Robert Johnson was down on his luck and short on cash last month when a man named Hunt offered him $800 to smuggle two Chinese immigrants in the trunk of his car into the United States through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.

But what looked like easy money quickly turned into a legal nightmare for the laid-off Windsor auto mechanic, 29, who joined the growing ranks of Canadian and U.S. citizens arrested at the border recently, accused of smuggling Chinese and other Asian immigrants into the United States.

Since May, about a dozen otherwise law-abiding citizens, including a Wayne County juvenile detention officer, have been arrested at the tunnel or Ambassador Bridge and charged with smuggling Asian nationals into the country.

In most cases, the smuggling suspects told authorities they were offered $150 to $4,000 by strangers for what initially looked like easy cash.

"Getting paid $1,000 for 20 minutes of work sounds like an easy way to make money, but the implications are tremendous if you get caught," Johnson's lawyer, Mark Magidson of Detroit, said Monday.

Court papers filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Detroit indicate that Johnson and another Canadian, Brian Rivait, plan to plead guilty soon to bringing illegal immigrants to the United States for private financial gain, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Rivait was arrested in May; both men have been in custody since their arrests.

Chief Ronald Smith of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the recent influx of Chinese immigrant smuggling arrests in Detroit follow a surge in arrests at the border crossing in Buffalo, N.Y. He said the smugglers may have moved their operation to Detroit after authorities in Buffalo figured out what they were doing.

"When we catch on to how they're doing the smuggling, they change their techniques," said Smith, who is based in Detroit.

U.S. officials estimate that from 14,500 to 17,500 people -- mainly women and children -- are smuggled annually into the United States. Many wind up in sweatshops, domestic servitude, agricultural labor camps or prostitution. Most come from Asia, Europe and Latin America. Smith said most of the arrests in Detroit involved immigrants who came voluntarily in search of opportunity.

Because Monday was a federal holiday and they didn't have access to records, Smith and Matthew Albence, deputy special agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Detroit, said they didn't know how many people have been arrested at Detroit crossings or how many immigrants have been taken into custody or returned to Canada.

But the Johnson and Rivait cases seem typical of the more recent arrests involving Chinese smuggling.

Johnson was arrested around 3:30 p.m. Dec. 8 after driving through the tunnel in his 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix. He told a customs agent that he was going shopping in the United States, but the agent sent him to a secondary inspection because he appeared nervous and tried to use a special express inspection lane.

At the secondary inspection, agents found two Chinese nationals in the trunk.

He told agents that the mystery man named Hunt offered to pay him $800 for smuggling the immigrants, taking them to the Greyhound bus terminal in Detroit and buying them tickets to New York City. He said he needed the money.

It's unclear what happened to the immigrants.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Mueller, who is handling the case, couldn't be reached Monday for comment.

Magidson, Johnson's lawyer, said his client is cooperating with authorities in hopes of receiving leniency.

Rivait and his girlfriend were arrested around 4:45 p.m. May 4, when agents found a Malaysian woman and two Chinese nationals in the trunk of his car.

Although he told the tunnel agent he was taking his girlfriend to Greektown for dinner, the agent sent him to a secondary inspection because he seemed nervous. When agents looked in the trunk, they found the immigrants.

Court papers said the Malaysian woman said an unidentified man in Windsor offered to smuggle her into the United States for $200. He drove her to the vehicle Rivait was driving and had her get into the trunk with the Chinese nationals, who didn't know each other.

The immigrants' whereabouts were unknown.

Rivait said a man named Moses offered him $450 to smuggle the three immigrants into the United States and drop them off at the Renaissance Center. Moses gave Rivait an $85 down payment and promised to pay him the rest when he returned to Canada.

"Rivait stated he was trying to make a little money and was not doing any harm," Officer Terry Pasha of Customs and Border Protection said in a court affidavit.

Rivait's girlfriend said she didn't know the immigrants were in the trunk. Charges against her were dismissed.

I wonder why they didn't ask themselves such questions as "If this is so easy why not just do it themselves??" I would have.

Interesting fines and jail time. I hope it gives some would-be smugglers pause.

RR