ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION TO SINGAPORE
SIEW HOON TAN
A thesis submitted in fulfillment Of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
School of History and Philosophy University of N.S.W
February, 2009
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Singapore is a country built entirely by migrants. The topic of migration thus forms a very important part of the history of Singapore, in which much research has been done. However, one aspect of the modern migration history of Singapore has not been well- studied, and that is illegal immigration. Since centuries ago, people have been smuggled on the very waterways that modern Singapore owes its prosperity to. Today, people are still entering and exiting the country clandestinely using the same waterways. However, as technology develops, the methods by which these people use to enter Singapore clandestinely are constantly changing. Regardless of the change in methods, such clandestine migration often involves great danger and hardship for those who dare to embark on the journey, just as the way it was in the past. This is even more so as Singapore turns from a colony to an independent country, and as the independent government increasingly exercises more control on the type of immigrants it allows into its borders to help take the country to greater heights in terms of prosperity. Immigration policies and laws thus become fine-tuned and people who are deemed “undesirable” are filtered out. The strict laws did not, however, deter some people from entering the country in search of a good job and a better life. As Singapore gears itself to receive more legal migrants, it must also be prepared to take measures against illegal immigrants. Illegal immigration is therefore a continuous battle between the authorities and the illegal migrants. Through the use of official and unofficial documents and public resources, some of which are not easily obtainable, this thesis traces the development of illegal immigration from a historical context and explores the life of the illegal migrants in Singapore so as to fill in the gaps on an under-studied topic, as well as the change in mindsets migrants-turned-citizens have towards new migrants, in an attempt to use a historical approach to explain the issue of the social phenomenon of illegal migration to Singapore.
i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Associate Professor Jean Gelman Taylor for her guidance, kind understanding and great patience. I could find no suitable word to express how greatly I am indebted to her. Without her advice, support and encouragement, I would not have been able to complete this thesis. I would also like to thank my co-supervisor, Dr Mina Roces, for her kind support and suggestions to improve this thesis, and staff members of the School of History who have been so kind to render administrative assistance to me during the period of my study.
Special thanks go out to Mr Richard Magnus, former Senior District Judge of the Subordinate Courts for his encouragement, and to Mr Lau Wing Yam, former Registrar of the Subordinate Courts of Singapore, who has kindly permitted me to use the resources of the Research and Resource Centre of the Subordinate Courts during the initial period of my research and who has been very supportive, as well as to my superior, Mr Daniel Ang Teck Heng, and ex-superior, Mr Tan Swan Liang, for their support and understanding. Thanks also to the staff members of the Research and Resource Centre who have been extremely kind and helpful.
I must also thank Professor Anthony Reid, former Director of the Asian Research Institute, National University of Singapore, who has given me his kind support when I was back in NUS for my research and also Associate Professor Bruce Lockhart for arranging for me to be a visiting graduate student at the Department of History. I also appreciate the kind assistance rendered by the staff of Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Library.
I must also acknowledge kind assistance of the court journalists, many of whom have given me invaluable help in sourcing for news articles regarding my research, as well as my colleagues and ex-colleagues from the Interpreters’ Sections who would keep me informed of unique court cases regarding my thesis topic. Very special thanks also to the people who have contributed to the resource materials in this thesis and whom I have spoken to but who have asked to keep their identities confidential. I really appreciate their help, though I am not able to name them here.
I would also like to thank my friends who have helped me in some way or another during the period of my research, especially Mr James Tan Swee Thiam, Mr Goh Hock Huan, and Ms Chen Shiyan, and last but not least, my family for the support they provided me through my entire life and in particular, I must acknowledge my husband Chih Chuan, without whose love, support, and encouragement, I would not have finished this thesis.
ii TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE NUMBER
ABSTRACT i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iii
LIST OF TABLES iv
CHAPTER ONE 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION TO SINGAPORE
CHAPTER TWO 34 EARLY AND COLONIAL SINGAPORE: HISTORICAL NETWORKS, HUMAN SMUGGLING ACTIVITIES AND IMMIGRATION LAWS
CHAPTER THREE 67 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS VERSUS THE AUTHORITIES: THE TRADITIONAL AND CHANGING TRENDS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IN SINGAPORE
CHAPTER FOUR 88 COMPLEXITIES OF OLD ROUTES, NEW TRENDS AND THE ROLE OF CHINESE SINGAPOREANS
CHAPTER FIVE 112 WHEN HEAVEN BECOMES HELL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IN SINGAPORE: LIVING CONDITIONS, SNAKEHEADS, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
CHAPTER SIX 133 CONCLUSIONS: THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IN SINGAPORE
BIBLIOGRAPHY 150
APPENDIX 161
iii
LIST OF TABLES
PAGE NUMBER
Table 1 No. of Illegal Immigrants from Various 75 Neighbouring Countries
Table 2 No. of Immigration Offenders Apprehended 79 during initial years of independence
Table 3 No. of Immigration Offenders Apprehended 79 from 2002-2006
Table 4 No. of Substantiated Maid Abuse Cases 112
iv CHAPTER ONE:
INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
TO SINGAPORE
Since the founding of Singapore in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles, the city has been one of the fastest developing ports in Southeast Asia. Today, it is one of the most developed cities in the region and one of the busiest ports in the world. It also has a long history as a transit point in the Malay world. Historically, it was a port situated at a very advantageous position where the merchants from east and west met and traded. It quickly developed into a very prosperous city with trade. Today, it is still one of the major transit points and stopover cities for major air and sea routes.
Besides that, however, Singapore is also well known internationally as a transit centre for less desirable activities such as drug trafficking (heroin) and money laundering1.
This is despite the fact that Singapore is one of the countries in the region with the strictest laws against many illegal activities including the above mentioned offences and of course illegal immigration (which carries mandatory imprisonment not only for the illegal immigrants themselves, but also their abettors, harbourers and employers)2. Singapore may in fact also be a major transit point for the activities of migrant smuggling, or even of
1 Central Intelligence Agency World Fact Book, 2003, from the CIA website: http://www.cia.gov. 2 For immigration offenders, the benchmark sentence for illegal entry is usually one-month imprisonment and four strokes of the cane. For harbourers and employers of these illegal immigrants, until November 2004, the minimum sentence was six months imprisonment (There has been a change in the mandatory imprisonment clause in the Immigration Law for harbourers who may be able to escape mandatory imprisonment under certain circumstances). There is moreover a presumption clause (meaning that the burden of proof lies with the accused person who is considered guilty until he can prove his innocence) for all immigration offences. All these will be discussed in later chapters of this research project.
1 human trafficking3, just as it is one for money laundering and drug trafficking. Andreas
Schloenhardt for example, has cited Singapore in his recently published work as a transit point used by many migrant smuggling organisations.4
Illegal immigration is a major problem in Singapore. Hundreds of illegal immigrants are charged in the Subordinate Courts of Singapore every month5. It is also a problem in most fast developing and developed countries in Asia. Although the actual numbers of illegal immigrants in Singapore are nothing compared to other receiving countries such as Japan, Taiwan or even Malaysia, the numbers are still relatively high when the sizes of Singapore (total area is 692.7 sq. km) and its population (about 4.6 million people) are taken into consideration. Moreover, it must be noted that Singapore has some of the tightest border controls and strictest migration laws compared to all the above countries. If left unattended, this problem may have negative effects on the society6 and if
3 There is a difference between the two terms of “migrant smuggling” and “human trafficking”, although in many cases, the distinction is not obvious and there is overlapping. This will be elaborated in the later part of this chapter. 4 Schloenhardt, Andreas, Migrant Smuggling: Illegal Migration, and Organised Crime in Australia and the Asia Pacific Region, Leiden, Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2003, pp. 144-145. Several other works cited Singapore as the main transit point for Indonesian illegal immigration to Malaysia. These works include Paramasivam, Sanmuga, The Dynamics of Indonesian Illegal Immigration to Malaysia: A Case Study of Kuala Lumpur and its Periphery, unpublished Master of Arts thesis for University of Malaya, 1996 ; Chin Ko- Lin, Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999; and Hugo, Graeme, , “Theory and Reality in Asia and the Pacific”, in Massey, Douglas S. et. al, Worlds in Motion: Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millenium, Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998 . I have also heard from some Chinese immigration offenders that their final destination was not Singapore, and interviews with Vietnamese interpreters also reveal the same results. This will be elaborated in Chapter Four of this thesis. 5 I have sat in court sessions for two months and recorded the number of immigration offenders charged and provided the breakdown of their nationalities. I shall be making use of the figures I have collected both through the court sessions I have sat in and from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) website: http://www.ica.gov.sg and yearbook in Chapters Three and Four of this thesis. 6 One example is prostitution and human trafficking. The State Department of the US has cited in 2003 that Singapore is a country with a ‘significant trafficking problem’ and that more than 100 women and girls are brought into Singapore each year to work with prostitutes, though Singapore has denied the claims (The Straits Times, 18 June 2004). Human trafficking for prostitution is certainly not a new problem in Singapore and this will be discussed in the next chapter of this thesis. Another example is during crises such as the recent SARS scare, as the Government has no records of illegal immigrants, it would not be able to control the possibility of the spread of the epidemic through these undocumented migrants. A situation like this
2 peace and order is disrupted, investors may lose confidence in this region. This will seriously affect the development of countries in the region.
More importantly, illegal immigration is not a problem that can be understood on its own. It has far greater implications than the mere entrance of some unauthorized people; it represents the more serious issue of vulnerable borders, which the Singapore government has placed much more emphasis on and is increasingly stepping up security on. The vulnerability of the border is one of the greatest concerns of not only Singapore, but many countries throughout the world. Historically this is the product of demarcating borders by mapping, patrolling and erecting barriers.7 Moreover, the development of recent events, especially the 911 incident8, has led to even tighter border controls, and the Singapore government is determined not to allow even the most trivial of clandestine goods through.
Governments classify peoples as “desirable” and “unwelcome”, and those deemed as “unwelcome people” will become “illegal immigrants” under the laws of these governments. Hence, illegal migration cannot be completely prevented, as there are always factors propelling people out of their home countries in search of safety and better economic opportunities. All governments can do is to effectively control the situation through the implementation of laws and regulations, thus migration becomes illegal for certain groups of people deemed to be “undesirable” for certain countries they enter.
As illegal immigration and human smuggling have always been global issues, much research has been done on these areas, with the focus on other parts of the world such as the
would pose a potential health hazard to the people of Singapore as well as of countries facing the same problems. 7 Tagliacozzo, Eric, Secret Trades, Porous Borders: Smuggling and States Along a Southeast Asian Frontier, 1865-1915, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2005. 8 The September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
3 Americas. There has also been no lack of works on international migration as a whole, as well as regional focus on various continents9. The focus of these works, however, usually starts from global phenomenon, then zoom in on specific regions, and then focus on specific countries. In recent years, researchers have slowly been shifting their attention to
Asia as a whole10, or with focus on certain countries such as Japan11. These works cited
Singapore as one of the new migrant-receiving countries in the region due to its rapid economic development, but little has been mentioned on the problems of illegal migration in Singapore itself. Singapore was mentioned more often in the latest works on illegal migrants with emphasis on Southeast Asia, yet it is clearly not the focus of the researchers on illegal migration12. There has been yet much research work relating to or on the current migration situation in Singapore and Singapore’s migration policy 13 , but the focus is usually on nation-building and ethnic issues, or labour migration and its impact on
Singapore economy or the economic considerations of the Singapore government and their
9 Miller, Mark J., “Illegal Migration”, in The Cambridge Survey of World Migration, R.Cohen ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 10 See Hugo, Graeme, “Illegal International Migration in Asia”, ibid.; Loiskandl, Helmut, “Illegal Migrant Workers in Japan”, ibid., Breman, Ellen M., “Irregular Migration: Policy Responses in Africa and Asia”, in International Migration Review, 18:3 (Autumn 1984), pp. 409-425; Dupont, Alan, East Asia Imperilled: Transnational Challenge to Security, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2001; Prasai, Surya B., “Asia’s Labour Pain”, in Far Eastern Economic Review, (29 April 1993), pp. 23. 11 Loiskandl, Helmut, “Illegal Migrant Workers in Japan”; Iguchi, Yasushi, “Changes in Labour Market and International Migration Under Rapid Economic Adjustment in Japan”, in Migration and Labour Market in Asia, Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2003. 12 Schoenhardt, Andreas, Migrant Smuggling, 2003, Battistella, Graziano & Asis, Maruja M.B, Unauthorised Migration in Southeast Asia, The Philippines: Scalabrini Migration Centre, 2003; Asis, Maruja M.B, “Globalization and Irregular Migration in Southeast Asia”, in Aris Ananta and Nuruidya Arifin eds., International Migration in Southeast Asia, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004. 13 Yap Mui Teng, “The Singapore State’s Response to Migration”, in Sojourn, 14:1 (1999), pp. 198-211, “Singapore”, in Migration and the Labour Market in Asia, Paris: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2003; Hui Weng Tat, “Regionalisation, Economic Restructuring and Labour Migration in Singapore”, in International Migration, 35:1 (1997), United Kingdom, United States: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., pp. 109-129; Chew Soon Beng and Rosalind Chew, “Immigration and Foreign Labour in Singapore”, in ASEAN Economic Bulletin, 12, no. 2 (Nov 1995); Neville, Warwick, “Urbanization and Demographic Change, in Robin J. Pryor ed., Migration and Development in Southeast Asia, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1979; Lian Kwen Fee, “Migration and the Formation of Malaysia and Singapore”, in the Cambridge Survey of World Migration.
4 impact on Singapore’s migration and labour policies. The issue of illegal migration in
Singapore has never been the focus and has often been left out. The many articles and research works on illegal immigration and human smuggling in recent years focusing on
Asia usually cite Singapore as one of the new receiving countries, yet none has truly focus on Singapore.
Why has this been so? Was it because Singapore is too tiny and insignificant? But
Singapore has always been one of the most important ports in the region since colonial times. Was it because the number of illegal immigrants was too insignificant? Yet Prasai had stated that “tiny Singapore has anywhere between 200,000-300,000 undocumented workers” in his article, and this sentence has in turn been quoted by others14. Whether this figure is an accurate one or not (for the writer did not state his source), researchers clearly do not find the number of illegal immigrants in Singapore too insignificant. Could it be due to the lack of information and data on illegal immigration in Singapore? This may be one of the main reasons for the lack of research work in this area. Being a sensitive topic to the
Singapore government, data is not easily available. Moreover, the illegal immigrants in
Singapore tend to be scattered all around to avoid being caught. This makes them difficult to be traced. In recent years, however, Singaporeans are becoming more aware as they themselves are in fear of being charged with immigration offences such as harbouring.
There have been more newspaper reports on immigration cases and the Ministry of Home
Affairs has released some general figures on the number of immigration offenders
14 See Prasai, Surya, “Asia’s Labour Pain”, and Hugo, Graeme, “Illegal International Migration in Asia”. From the annual figures provided by the ICA, the number of immigration offenders appears to have been falling throughout the past few years. However, this figure did not include those who came to Singapore on the pretext of social visits to seek illegal employment, a growing phenomenon which I will discuss in Chapter Four of this thesis.
5 charged 15 . Moreover, there were several significant criminal cases in recent months involving illegal immigrants either directly or indirectly, and through these cases, the border security issues coupled with the issue of illegal immigrants have become a new favourite of the local media, triggering even greater public awareness and concern for these issues. The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore has also been giving out booklets to educate the public on immigration offences as a direct way of engaging the public and raising awareness of the criminal nature of harbouring and employing the illegal immigrants.
With these new information and data, this research project thus aims to fill in the gap by examining the historical phenomenon of illegal immigration in Singapore and its neighbours from a broad historical overview, using the historical significance of Singapore as a trading port and a migrant country as background and as one of the world’s busiest transit centres as a starting point and as a pivot. The thesis will trace not only the legal trends of migration but also the activities of human smuggling and illegal immigration. It also aims at showing how, as a country built by migrants, Singapore has developed into a fully independent nation with a government that has been trying to exert its control, and is now importing more migrant workers while keeping an even tighter control on the borders, blocking out those deemed “undesirable”. At the same time, the people of Singapore, being descendents of migrant workers, have settled and view Singapore as their homeland.
Through influence of the government policies and media coverage, they now look at the new migrants, especially the illegal ones with hostility. The thesis will ask if the battle
15 The annual figures on immigration offenders arrested can be found on the ICA official website: http://www.ica.gov.sg. However, the figures only manifested the number of immigration offenders arrested, so it may not truly reflect the number of actual immigration offenders in Singapore. Moreover, there is no breakdown of the figures to show where the illegal immigrants were from.
6 against the vulnerability of the borders with tighter border controls and harsher laws is indeed keeping the “undesirable humans” out, or if more efforts are needed to keep the number of illegal immigrants down, and more importantly, has the situation for migrants, especially the illegal ones improved with Singapore’s development.
Migration Theories, History and Issues
Migration is itself such a broad topic that it is difficult even to have a fixed definition of it from different schools of thought or different research areas. One of the broadest definitions of migration came from Lee, who has defined migration as follows:
“Migration is defined broadly as a permanent or semi-permanent change of residence. No restriction is placed upon the distance of the move or upon the voluntary or involuntary nature of the act, and no distinction is made between external and internal migration. … No matter how short or how long, how easy or how difficult, every act of migration involves an origin, a destination, and an intervening set of obstacles.”16
The above is just one of the many ways of defining migration. However, migration is a phenomenon so complex that mere origin and destination issues could not cover. Cohen has set out nine dyads as the building blocks of theory for migration. These nine dyads are: individual versus contextual reasons to migrate; rate versus incidence; internal versus international migration; temporary versus permanent migration; settler versus labour migration; economic versus political refugees; illegal versus legal migration; and push versus pull factors.17
16 Lee, Everett, “A Theory of Migration”, in Migration, J.A.Jackson ed., New York: Cambridge University Press, 1966, pp. 285. 17 Cohen, Robin, “Introduction”, in Theories of Migration, R. Cohen ed., United Kingdom: Elgar Reference, 1996, pp. xi-xv.
7 Cohen cautioned that the above list is by no means exhaustive, and an effort to have a single comprehensive theory that could cover all the above will probably come to no avail.
For research purposes, some or all of these dyads are often used, and this research project will largely evolve around the issues of “temporary versus permanent migration”, “settler versus labour migration” and of course “illegal versus legal migration”.
As much as it is broad, migration is also a very old phenomenon. As Arango has put it, “migration is as old as humanity itself”18. Since the advent of humankind, people moved and settled in places of their own preference, and after thousands of years of movements, civilizations were formed, cultures developed, borders emerged, and the political world today is made. And yet, movement continues, and will probably continue till the end of humankind.
Researchers have roughly divided the modern period of migration history into four distinctive ones: the mercantile period (1500-1800), a period where slavery and indentureship were predominant; the industrial period (from early 19th century), where large numbers of people left stagnant European economies to the rising Americas; the period of limited migration (first half of the 20th century), a period affected by the World
Wars and the Great Depression; and the post-industrial migration period (from the 1960s) where migration truly becomes global in scope instead of just confining to Europe.19 The above classification of migration periods is organized around the European history of migration. The fact of large-scale migration of the European people during these periods does not mean that migration did not happen in other areas of the world to other peoples.
18 Arango, Joaquin, “New Migrations, New Theories”, in Massey, Douglas S. et al., Worlds in Motion, 1998, pp. 1. 19 Arango, Ibid.; Cohen, Robin, “Prologue”, in the Cambridge Survey of World Migration.
8 In fact, the Chinese for one, especially those from China’s southern provinces, have been migrating to different parts of the world for a very long time.20 Trocki refers to Southeast
Asia as a zone of off-shore production for Chinese industries and markets.21 While Chinese cycles of migration do not necessarily coincide with those of the specific periods Arango and Cohen give for Europeans, Chinese migration to Southeast Asia rose steadily in response to opportunities created by European colonial enterprises in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Moreover, though the numbers of Chinese migrants are far lower than the numbers of European migrants, and considering that the Chinese are people from only one country, the scope and impact of the Chinese migration have been of great significance in world history, especially in Southeast Asia. Chinese trade, enterprise and migration in
Southeast Asia can also be divided into a few periods. Vietnam has the longest and most continuous history of settlement. For most of the first millennium it was the southernmost province of China. The oldest identifiable Chinese town in Indonesia dates back to the late
11th century in northeast Sumatra. Reid traces this history and the great increase in contact and settlement from the 15th century. 22 Chinese flocked to European trading posts in
Southeast Asia in such numbers that Leonard Blusse calls Batavia a “Chinese colonial town.”23 From the 19th century many went to work as indentured labourers in tin mines and plantations in British Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies, and as labourers and market
20 See Pan, Lynn, Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora, Boston, Toronto, London: Little, Brown and Company, 1990; Fitzgerald, C.P, The Southern Expansion of the Chinese People: “Southern Fields and Southern Oceans”, Canberra: Australian University Press, 1972; Wang Gungwu, “Sojourning: The Chinese Experience in Southeast Asia” and Reid, Anthony, “Flows and Seepages in the Long-term Chinese Intervention with Southeast Asia”, in Anthony Reid ed., Sojourners and Settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1996. 21 Trocki, Carl, Opium, Empire & the Global Political Economy: A Study of the Asian Opium Trade 1750- 1950, New York: Routledge, 1999. 22 Reid, Anthony, “Flows and Seepages in the Long-term Chinese Intervention with Southeast Asia”. 23 Blusse, Leonard, Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women, and the Dutch in VOC Batavia, Dordrecht-Holland, Riverto-USA: Feris Publications, 1986, Chapter 5.
9 gardeners to the Kingdom of Siam. World Depression, Japanese Occupation period (1941-
45), and the rise of independent states in Southeast Asia in the post-war period brought an end to migration from China.
Modern nation-states define and guard their borders. Rules and regulations were established to control the flow of people as borders were defined. The governments of nations began to choose who to welcome into their borders and who to be kept out. At the same time, there were others reluctant to move, yet forced to do so by circumstances, such as refugees, or were deceived into doing so, such as slaves. As Papastergiadis puts it:
“The concept of the border is in itself a constitutive feature of the nation- state. All nation-states have at least attempted to impose strict limits on the flows of migration across their borders. No nation-state has openly declared that immigration is free and unchecked. These regulating policies have invariably been formulated according to the principle that the national community needs protection and regulation like a body. The national border becomes like the skin of the community. The principles of inclusion and exclusion – who could enter a given space, who should be assimilated in order to stay, and who needed to be excluded – were influenced by a series of organicist metaphors which underpinned the new national ideologies. The question of origin, and the determination of the national boundary, became the most contested zones, and produced some of the most bloody outcomes of recent history. In the era of the nation-state, migration has been understood as the process of human movement across national boundaries.”24
The issue of illegal immigration itself is again a very complex one. Hence, the definition of an “illegal migrant” can be very tricky business. Illegal migrants may be people who left their countries, driven to the extreme by poverty or unbearable living conditions in their own countries or in escape of certain crimes, or they may yet be people who are ambitious and who have the opportunity to do so. Researchers on international migrants usually classify illegal migrants as: migrants who leave or enter a country
24 Papastergiadis, Nikos, The Turbulence of Migration, Globalization, Deterritorialization and Hybridity, Cambridge: Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers, 2000, pp. 53.
10 clandestinely and without permission and can be further classified as the “Overstayers”, who are migrants who arrive into a country legally and fail to abide by the conditions of their admission; the “Undocumented” who are migrants who arrive into a country without any official documents; as well as the “Refugees”, who are migrants who flee their country of origin for fear of persecution in their country of origin.25
For the terms of trafficking and smuggling, the United Nations also has clear definitions:
“Human Trafficking” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation…26
“Migrant Smuggling” shall mean the procurement, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person into a State Party of which the person is not a national or a permanent resident.27
However, as some researchers pointed out, the definition of terms such as “human trafficking”, human smuggling”, and “irregular migration” are often unclear and sometimes overlapping.28 Illegal migration certainly falls within the boundary of “migrant smuggling”.
However, one must also note that in the process of migrant smuggling, methods of coercion,
25 Adapted from Paramasivam, Sanmuga, The Dynamics of Indonesian Illegal Immigration to Malaysia: A Case Study of Kuala Lumpur and its Periphery, 1996. 26 United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Article 3a), from http://www.uncjin.org/Documents/Conventions/dcatoc/final_documents_2/convention_%20traff_eng.pdf 27 UN Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, Article 3a), from http://www.uncjin.org/Documents/Conventions/dcatoc/final_documents_2/convention_smug_eng.pdf 28 Schloenhardt, Andreas, Migrant Smuggling, Chapter One, Battistella, Graziano & Asis, Maruja M.B, Unauthorised Migration in Southeast Asia, pp. 11, Piper, N., “A Problem by a Different Name? A Review of Research on Trafficking in South-East Asia and Oceania”, in International Migration, Vol. 43: 1/2, (2005), pp. 203-233.
11 deception and fraud are very often used, and the subjects of smuggling are often opened to exploitation.29
Some recent works have pointed out that more neutral terms such as “unauthorized migration” ought to be used in place of “illegal migration” or “undocumented migration”, as the term “illegal” tends to criminalize migrants even when the violation of migration laws is more of an administrative nature rather than a criminal one. Such terms as illegal migrants place blame on the migrants, regardless of whether they are victims or not. Many are not “undocumented migrants” either, for most of them will carry travel or work documents30.
The Immigration and Customs Authority of Singapore has given the definition for
“illegal immigrant” as “any person who tries to come into Singapore without going through the necessary immigration procedures and obtaining the relevant permit” and an
“overstayer” is anyone who “remained in Singapore after the cancellation of any permit or certificate, or after the expiration or notification to him, in such manner as may be prescribed, of the cancellation of any pass relating to or issued to him unless he is otherwise entitled or authorised to remain in Singapore under the provisions of the Immigration Act or its regulations.”31 However, these definitions are strictly from the legal point of view and do not take into account if the illegal immigrant enter Singapore on their own will and also the working conditions and circumstances leading to the cancellation of permits. It is, however, clear that whoever violated the migration laws shall be liable to be charged, and
29 One must, however, note that the Singapore government’s point of view is different from that of the United Nations, as unlike the United Nations’ definition, the Singapore government does not take into consideration if the illegal immigrants have been deceived with regard to the actual living and working conditions upon their arrival in Singapore. 30 Battistella, Graziano & Asis, Maruja M.B, Unauthorised Migration in Southeast Asia, pp. 11. 31 Extracted from the ICA Gallery, ICA website: http://www.ica.gov.sg. The definitions for both illegal immigrants and overstayers were only stated after 2005. Before that, the ICA did not clearly define both terms.
12 the term “illegal immigrants” is used as a term in the Singapore courts as well as the media to refer to those guilty of illegal entry. Moreover, from the Singapore government’s point of view, the burden of guilt is indeed on the violators of migration laws, regardless of whether they are also victims of exploitations themselves and this is clearly manifested by the presumption clause added to the migration laws.
The cases of illegal immigration found in Singapore include immigration offenders who fit some of the descriptions of Brennan for an “illegal immigrant”, who may be “a person who crosses a land border between ports of entry to seek employment in another country”; “a worker who is recruited by an unauthorized agency to work”; “a migrant worker in any number of countries who changes his job and fails to report the fact to the authorities”; “ a tourist or student who decides to remain in a country and seek employment”; “a relative who joins a foreign worker without going through formal family reunion channels”; or “a worker who…changes his sponsor or breaks his contract without authorization”.32 The categories of people described by Brennan shall be looked into with greater detail in chapters three and four of this thesis. Although Brennan has defined the illegal migrant as a “he”, female illegal migrants play an equally important part in illegal migration. The presence of female illegal migrants brought about issues such as prostitution and this will be elaborated in Chapter Five of this thesis.
It is, however, Schloenhardt who presented the more complete description of the differentiation of the circumstances surrounding the illegal migrants in the destination country:
Illegal entry, including clandestine entry, undocumented or fraudulent entry (without any or with incomplete, false or stolen travel documentation (such
32 Brennan, Ellen M., “Irregular Migration”, pp. 409-410.
13 as passports, visas, residence permits)), and entry in contravention of general or individual entry or residence prohibitions.
Illegal residence or stay. That is residence or stay within the territory of a country of which the person is not a national and without the authorization required by law to remain in that country. Illegal residence may also occur in circumstances where these formalities have been complied upon entry, but later the conditions to which stay in this country are subject have changed or expired, for example where a person enters a country legally on a temporary visa and fails to leave before the visa expires (often described as “overstayers”).
Illegal employment, including unlawful activities, work in defiance of the national laws and regulations governing the employment of non-nationals, regardless whether they are legally or illegally within the territory of the country.33
These three groups of illegal migrants shall be discussed in chapters three and four of this thesis as they are very common in Singapore. These people usually attempt to enter the country by the following ways: They apply for a tourist visa and travel to the country in accordance with the usual practices, with the unstated intention of looking for work and/or overstaying their visa; or attempt to enter using fraudulent travel documents, such as a fake visa or photo-substituted passport; or attempt to avoid detection by the authorities altogether, for example, by attempting to enter secretly by air or sea.34 Both Brennan’s and
Schloenhardt’s descriptions of the “illegal immigrants” clearly include the “overstayers”.
Though these overstayers have entered the country legally, by remaining in the country after the expiry of their visas, their stay becomes illegal. Although “irregular migration” and “unauthorized migration” are preferred terms, this thesis shall adopt the same approach with Brennan and Schloenhardt by using the more discriminating terms of “illegal
33 Adapted from Schloenhardt, Andreas, Migrant Smuggling, pp. 17. 34 Adapted from David, Fiona, Human Smuggling and Trafficking: An Overview of the Response at the Federal Level, Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2000, for the situation in Australia, which is almost similar to the situation in Singapore.
14 migration” and “illegal immigrants”. It has to be made clear, however, that the use of the term “illegal immigrant” in this thesis is not meant to discriminate these immigrants. Rather, the term is used to emphasise how a historical phenomenon has, in the hands of a government that has gained the right to, and is ever more eager and ready to extend its control over its borders and people, become “illegal”, and how the subjects of this historical phenomenon, notwithstanding that they may simply wish to earn a living and not intend to cause any harm to anyone or the society at large, and may even be contributing to the economy of Singapore, become “illegal” under the laws made and revised by the
Independent government and have had to be punished with stiff sentences. Hence, even if these immigrants were shown to have indeed contributed to the economy of Singapore, as long as they did not come to Singapore through proper channels, they would be considered immigration offenders by the government and be punished35.
Generally, these illegal immigrants are likely to be people who will give anything in search of a better life. They are people who have risked their lives to migrate illegally and may continue to take risks if need be to achieve what they seek for. These are people who may cause problems in countries they seek refuge to. Their presence may be a threat to the peace and order of the country, leading to a possible increase in crime rate and other social issues. Moreover, as they had entered illegally, the government will have no records of their existence, making it difficult to track them down. The inability to locate migrants may lead to serious public health problems in Singapore in times of epidemics such as the SARS
35 One example of the government’s stand was reflected in a very recent (June 2009) case (PP versus Lin Shuliang) in which a construction worker who made good in Singapore and became the boss of two construction companies was jailed for two weeks when he was found to have used a forged education certificate to apply for Permanent Residency status in Singapore. He had used the same forged certificate years ago when he applied to come to Singapore years ago.
15 epidemic originating in China. These are people who are definitely not welcomed by the
Singapore government, which has frequently revised the Immigration Laws with the hope of keeping them out.36 As border security tightens and immigration laws get stricter, the methods of the illegal migrant become more sophisticated. The “disappearing tourists” incident in Taiwan37 and the new method of working illegals while entering and re-entering the destination country on valid social visit passes are just some examples.
While trying all means to keep illegal immigrants out, the Singapore government on the other hand welcomes legal migrants for economic reasons, and has been actively controlling the flow of people in and out of the country38. Hence, the flow of migrants has never stopped since or even before the founding of this tiny island state. The following section shall trace the history of migration to Singapore with particular reference to the
Chinese, a major migrant group to Southeast Asia, and who now form 75% of the population in Singapore in 200739.
Chinese Immigration to Singapore: History and Literature Review
Singapore is a typical migrant country which owes its existence and prosperity today to the large number of immigrants from countries such as India and China. The
Chinese, especially, have been the most prominent group of immigrants and have the
36 There have been parliamentary debates throughout the decades on this issue and the Immigration Laws are getting stricter. This issue will be further elaborated and discussed in later chapters of this thesis. 37 The “Disappearing tourists” referred to here are people who entered a particular country on the pretext of a social visit but failed to return to their own country. In the case of Taiwan, these people joined tour groups to enter Taiwan, but they broke away from the tour groups during the trip and their whereabouts became unknown thereafter. 38 Yap Mui Teng, “The Singapore State’s Response to Migration”. 39 According to the Social Satistics 2008 by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports: http://www.mcys.gov.sg/MCDSFiles/download/social%20stats%202008.pdf.
16 greatest impact in the history of Southeast Asia and Singapore, whether politically, economically or socially. As Mackie puts:
“Chinese have been pulled towards different identities at various times, as Chinese sojourners abroad, as Westernized colonial subjects, as loyal citizens of their adopted countries, as revolutionary communists or modern multinational capitalists.”40
The Chinese have been in contact with Southeast Asia for hundreds of years. There are records of Chinese men who settled in various parts of Southeast Asia as early as the
Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) 41 . These people were mostly merchants who travelled to
Southeast Asia to trade and some decided to settle down. Scholars such as Wang Gungwu,
Anthony Reid, C. P Fitzgerald, and Victor Purcell have written and edited various works on the Chinese in Southeast Asia42. They have published works on not only the migration of the Chinese, but also on many other aspects such as the cultural influence the Chinese have on Southeast Asian countries, the assimilation of Chinese in Southeast Asia and their identity problems. Important studies of Chinese occupation specialisation by dialect group and of settlers in specific regions have been made by Heidhues, Cushman, Trocki, and
Rush.43
40 Mackie, JAC, “Introduction”, pp. xiii, in Anthony Reid ed., Sojourners and Settlers. 41 Wang Gungwu, “Sojourning: The Chinese Experience in Southeast Asia” and Reid, Anthony, “Flows and Seepages in the Long-term Chinese Intervention with Southeast Asia”, in Anthony Reid ed., Sojourners and Settlers. 42 See Wang Gungwu’s works on the history of Chinese overseas, their relationship with China and their identity issues in China and the Chinese Overseas, Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1991; Wang Gungwu and Jennifer W. Cushman eds., Changing Identities of the Southeast Asian Chinese since World War II, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1988; A Short History of the Nanyang Chinese, Singapore: D. Moore for Eastern University Press, 1959. For Anthony Reid, see Asian freedoms: the idea of freedom in East and Southeast Asia, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998, and Sojourners and Settlers. For FitzGerald, see The Southern Expansion and The Third China: the Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia, London: Angus & Robertson for the Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1965, 1966. For Victor Purcell, see The Chinese in Malaya, KL, London: Oxford University Press, 1967 and The Chinese in Southeast Asia, London: O.U.P, 1965. 43 Heidhues, Mary F. Somers, Bangka Tin and Mentok Pepper: Chinese Settlement on an Indonesian Island, Singapore: ISEAS, c1992; Golddiggers, Farmers and Traders in the 'Chinese Districts' of West Kalimantan,
17 The greatest number of Chinese immigrants came in the second half of the 19th century as coolies to work in the mines and plantations of Malaya, Singapore and Sumatra, and as labourers to Siam, largely due to the poor economic situation and political instability in China44. It was a mainly male migration. Men came as “sojourners” to the new colonies to earn a living and send money back home, with no intention to stay permanently45. The colonial and Siamese governments encouraged this inflow of labour to develop the colonies and there were no efforts to restrict migration 46 . Many of the earlier immigrants to
Singapore worked in gambier and pepper plantations during the earlier half of the 19th century but later became labourers in industrial and service sectors as these plantations were abandoned due to the drop in prices of these two commodities47, or moved to rubber plantations and tin mining. Much as they hoped to return to their homeland, few of these sojourners-labourers eventually managed to return to China, however, as Seah Eu Chin48 , one of the earliest Chinese settlers in Singapore and a Justice of the Peace and Honorary
Magistrate, has written:
Indonesia, Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asian Program Publications, Southeast Asian Program, Cornell University, 2003; Cushman, Jennifer, Family and State: The Formation of a Sino-Thai Tin-mining Dynasty, Singapore, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991; Trocki, Carl, Opium and Empire: Chinese Society in Colonial Singapore 1800-1910, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, c1990; Rush, James R., Opium to Java : revenue farming and Chinese enterprise in colonial Indonesia, 1860-1910, Jakarta, Equinox Publishing, 2007. 44 Leung Yuen Sang, “The Economic Life of the Chinese in Late Nineteenth-century Singapore”, in Lee Lai To ed., Early Chinese Immigration Societies: Case Studies from North America and British Southeast Asia, Singapore: Heinemann Asia, 1988; Ee, Joyce, “Chinese Migration to Singapore, 1896-1941”, in Journal of Southeast Asian History, Vol. 2, 1961; Ong Jin Hui, “Chinese Indentured Labour: Coolies and Colonies”, in The Cambridge Survey of World Migration; Fukuda, Shozo, With Sweat and Abacus: Economic Roles of Southeast Asian Chinese on the Eve of World War II, Singapore: Select Books, 1995. 45 Song Ong Siang, One Hundred Years’ History of the Chinese in Singapore, London: John Murray, 1923, San Francisco: Chinese Material Centre, Inc., 1975; Wang Gungwu, “Sojourning: The Chinese Experience in Southeast Asia”, pp. 1-14. 46 Song Ong Siang, One Hundred Years’ History of the Chinese in Singapore, Ee, Joyce, “Chinese Migration to Singapore, 1896-1941”, 2:1, 1961, pp. 42-62; Turnbull, C.M., A History of Singapore 1819-1975, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1977. 47 Leung Yuen Sang, “The Economic Life of the Chinese in Late Nineteenth-century Singapore”, pp. 139-140. 48 This account was taken from Song Ong Siang, One Hundred Years’ History of the Chinese in Singapore, 1923, reprinted 1975, pp. 74.
18 “They are mostly very poor. Originally, they come with the intention of returning to their native land after a sojourn of three or four years, but, out of ten, only one or two individuals are able to return after that time, and when they do retire, they do not take with them much wealth…There are some who are able to go back after five or six years, and others after seven, eight or ten years. There are a great number who remain here upwards of ten and twenty years: and yet, unable to return, ultimately die and repose their ashes in this Settlement.”
The hard work of these people, together with Singapore’s geographical advantages, and the British policy of making Singapore a free trading port, made Singapore a very important port in the region shortly after its founding. This large influx of Chinese coolies continued until the period of the Great Depression when the Colonial Government restricted the number of male immigrants with the Immigration Restriction Ordinance passed in 192849. The Act did not restrict immigration by women, and there was a rise in the number of female immigrants in the same period.
Most of the sojourners who came to Singapore during the 19th century were males.
Some traders married local women and formed new population categories called Baba
Chinese in the Straits Settlements and Peranakan Chinese in the Netherlands East Indies50.
But overall there was a serious imbalance between the population of males and females, and this was one of the hindrances for the establishment of a stable settlement. As many of the coolies could not find spouses and remained single and poor, they would not have wanted to settle down. Moreover, this led to the importation of women from China and
Japan for prostitution51.
49 Ee, Joyce, “Chinese Migration to Singapore, 1896-1941”. 50 Khoo Joo Ee, The Straits Chinese: A Cultural History, Amsterdam: Pepin Press, 1996; Frost, Mark Ravinder, Transcultural Diaspora: The Straits Chinese in Singapore 1819-1918, Singapore: Asian Research Institute, 2003; Suryadinata, Leo, Understanding the Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia, Singapore: ISEAS, 2007; Ethnic relations and nation-building in Southeast Asia : the case of the ethnic Chinese, Singapore: ISEAS, 2004. 51 Warren, James, Ah Ku and Karayuki San: Prostitution in Singapore, 1870-1940, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1993.
19 When immigration restrictions were imposed in British colonies during the late
1920s, there was gradually an increase in the number of females. This increase in female immigrants led to a more permanent community as many family members of the coolies came and they were more willing to settle down in Singapore52. Japan ended the flow of migrants into Singapore during its wartime occupation, and the new Communist government installed in China in 1949 stopped emigration, so that contact with China was broken and many of the Chinese in Singapore made it their permanent home. New identities then developed for those who settled down 53 . When Singapore gained
Independence in 1965, these people became its first citizens and it was these immigrants who made what is now uniquely Singaporean, the history, the culture, and even the accent known as “Singlish”.
Works on the history of Singapore and migration during the colonial periods, including the above mentioned ones are very numerous. However, they do not focus on illegal migration. Many focus on the vices of society such as prostitution and opium, but leave out a more clandestine activity that was developing in a parallel way with the conventional history of migration to Singapore: the activity of human smuggling in the region. Warren, in his work Ah Ku and Karayuki San, touched on the subject of human trafficking, but his focus was ultimately on the topic of prostitution in Singapore. The activity of human trafficking, especially of women and children during the colonial period, was by no means a new phenomenon. The Southeast Asian region has been involved in
52 Lian Kwen Fee, “Migration and the Formation of Malaysia and Singapore”, pp. 393; Lai Ah Eng, Peasants, Proletarians and Prostitutes: A Preliminary Investigation into the Work of Chinese Women in Colonial Malaya, Singapore: ISEAS, c1986. 53 Wang Gungwu, “The Study of Chinese Identity in Southeast Asia”, in Wang Gungwu and Jennnifer Cushman eds., Changing Identities of the Southeast Asian Chinese Since World War II, 1988, pp. 1-22.
20 human trafficking and slavery for hundreds of years. The next Chapter of this thesis will trace the development of human trafficking and its network up till the current times. This network has its importance in the development of illegal immigration in the region.
When Singapore became independent, its new government defined who were citizens and imposed restrictions on potential migrants. However, these did not stop people from entering Singapore illegally. These illegal entrants now not only came from
Singapore’s traditional migrant-sending countries such as China and India, but also from its immediate neighbours such as Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as from other parts of
Southeast Asia54. Most of the Southeast Asian countries gained independence at around the same period, after War World II when the colonial powers retreated. Not all of them developed at the same pace. Countries such as Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Indonesia lagged economically, while political upheavals also generated emigrants and refugees. People from these countries thus began to flow to faster developing countries like Singapore. This thesis will attempt to show how this flow of illegal immigration is actually very much a continuation of the human trafficking activities in the Southeast Asian region as well as the
South-China region and determine Singapore’s role in it.
Scope of Research Project
To achieve the aim of the research project, I will first examine the history of migration to Singapore with specific focus on human smuggling and illegal immigration. I will also compare the development of migration from the “sojourners” who came from countries like China and India during colonial times to work as coolies and later became
54 Prasai, Surya B., “Asia’s Labour Pain”.
21 “settlers” and helped build the Singapore of today, with the group of illegal immigrants who continue to come from China and India, and also with a new group of illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries such as Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, and
Indonesia. I will examine their motives for illegal migration. A review of immigration laws and regulations of Singapore since colonial times will show the impact of independence on
Singapore’s immigration policies. I will use court records involving crimes committed by illegal immigrants as a primary source of information on illegal entry and government policies developed to curb it.
The research will focus on the 20th century. It has been a very significant one for
Singapore as well as for other countries in Southeast Asia in terms of transition from colonies to independent nations, and nation building since World War II, and, for Singapore, the transition of its Chinese population from “sojourners” to “settlers”. While colonial governments and the Kingdom of Siam welcomed migrants and exercised only a loose control, the new countries of post-war Southeast Asia all established tighter immigration laws and greater restrictions on migrants, especially in Singapore. Within the past century, the groups of migrants and illegal immigrants have changed as a result of the social, political and economic changes that occurred both to the migrant-sending and receiving countries.
While illegal immigrants come from different countries, this research project will focus primarily on those from China. China is a traditional migrant-sending country to
Southeast Asia and the Chinese have been the key migrants that helped build the Singapore of today. Moreover, the largest flow of illegal immigrants into Singapore in recent years is
22 still from China55 and Chinese middlemen are still very much involved in present day smuggling activities. Through the Chinese middlemen both within and outside Singapore, syndicates are able to smuggle migrants to and from many parts of Southeast Asia.
Research Objectives
Based on the scope of this research project, the following are the detailed objectives
of this research study:
i. To review the history of human smuggling in Southeast Asia and illegal
immigration to Singapore, emphasizing the importance of the historical
networking in place
ii. To assess the importance of Singapore as both destination and transit point
for illegal immigrants by tracing the historical networks of illegal activities
and contraband trades amidst the legal ones, and identifying the key local
players, for example the local Chinese.
iii. To analyse the development of immigration laws from the colonial times to
the present, and the reasons behind the making of the laws from the
government’s perspective
iv. To assess the Singapore government’s methods of handling the issue and
their results, as well as the future challenges it faces
v. To review the lives and living conditions of these illegal migrants and
evaluate the consequence of Singapore’s policies towards illegal
immigration
55 Refer to Table 1 of Chapter Three of this thesis. My own observation in Court sessions also shows this.
23 vi. To show how court records can be used as a data source on illegal migration
and government views, and also how they reveal illegal immigrants’ views
and give voice to otherwise voiceless statistics
vii. To attempt to establish migration as a category in history, especially in
Singapore history, by explaining the problem of illegal migration using a
historical approach.
Research Approach and Methodology
The topic of illegal immigration is itself a relatively sensitive issue and it is even more so to the Singapore government, which tends not to be transparent when it comes to migration issues, be it legal or illegal. As mentioned earlier, the lack of data could be one of the reasons why there have been very few works on the topic of illegal immigration in
Singapore. Obtaining data is therefore the biggest problem faced by the researcher. I have both primary and secondary sources in English, Chinese and Japanese, and my own experience as Court Interpreter in cases involving illegal migrants. I have conducted an extensive search for data in both published and unpublished works on migration hstory of
Singapore and illegal migration in Southeast Asia. My secondary sources include:
Research papers and theses in all University libraries in Singapore and relevant government agencies;
Official Reports published by the Ministry of Home Affairs of Singapore on illegal immigration to Singapore through the Ministry website.
24 Newspaper Reports. The mass media is a major and interesting source of information on illegal immigrants in Singapore and of the government official statements on illegal immigration. They sometimes also contained reports of the life of illegal immigrants and the vices in which they were involved. The views of the public on illegal immigration may sometimes be found in the forum section of newspapers and a contrast can be made between views of the public and the Government.
My Primary Data includes the Law Records of Straits Settlements and the
Colony of Singapore, containing the ordinances passed by the colonial government from the start of the 20th century. They are crucial in tracing the development of immigration laws and restrictions on immigrants during the colonial period, obtained from the Judicial
Development Centre of the Subordinate Courts of Singapore. The Judicial Development
Centre at the Subordinate Courts, which is closed to the public, possesses complete records on the revisions of, and amendments made to, the Immigration and Labour Laws and
Ordinances right from the Straits Settlements period till 2003. There are also complete records of the Parliamentary Debates on the issue of Illegal Immigration since Singapore gained its independence in 1965. Many of these records, especially the older ones, are not easily available elsewhere, and few institutions even within Singapore possess such complete records.
Another important primary source is The Immigration Act of Republic of
Singapore. The full set of immigration laws of the Republic of Singapore and the various revisions made throughout the years manifests the Government’s attitude towards illegal immigration. A contrast with the attitude of the colonial government will also be made. I
25 have also consulted the records of Parliamentary Debates on Issue of Illegal Immigration to uncover the reasons for the decisions made to revise the Immigration Act.
I also draw on Statement of Facts (SOFs) for Immigration Offenders. These are accurate police records prepared to be produced in Court with the Charges of the immigration offender. Included in these SOFs are the means the immigration offender entered Singapore and the circumstances leading to their arrests. In the case of harbourers or employers of illegal immigrants, the SOFs will also state the circumstances leading to the act of the offence. Through these SOFs, the means by which the illegal immigrant enters Singapore will be revealed. The identities of these immigration offenders will remain confidential. Also consulted are Grounds of Decision (GD) for the Conviction of
Immigration Cases. These are the records of the decisions made by Judges in determining whether the accused person is guilty or not. In the event that the accused person is convicted, an explanation is provided in the GDs for the sentence given to the convicted accused person. They are useful in understanding the benchmark sentences for immigration offences and the factors taken into consideration during sentencing. I have also sat through the Mention Court sessions for two months to collect data on the breakdown of the number of illegal immigrants and the country they were from.
Researcher’s Own Experience
As an Interpreter with the Subordinate Courts of Singapore for more than seven years since August 1999, one of my main duties was to interpret in Court for Criminal mentions and trials. Interpreting in Court provided me with an opportunity to come into contact with thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly from China, for the Subordinate
26 Courts deals with all cases related to illegal immigration in Singapore that are charged in
Court. I also have the opportunity to meet interpreters from other Southeast Asian countries, some of whom were kind enough to share with me their experiences with illegal immigrants.
During court mentions, I had to interpret the charges and prescribed punishments, as well as the accompanied statement of facts to the Chinese illegal immigrants in Mandarin,
Hokkien, or Teochew56, or sometimes read them to illegal immigrants of other nationalities if they spoke English or Chinese dialects, and in turn I also interpreted their mitigation plea to the presiding Judge.
By interpreting to them, I was able to get a clear picture of the kind of immigration charges they faced and the kind of punishment they would be getting if they pleaded to the charges, for if I did not have a full understanding of what I was interpreting, the interpretation would be inaccurate. From the statements of fact, I got to know how most of these illegal immigrants came to Singapore and the circumstances leading to their arrests.
Interpretation of their mitigating factors enabled me to know their background and circumstances of life that led them to take the risk of being caught and severely punished in search of a better life overseas.
When interpreting in trials especially, I came to have the full facts of the cases.
During the trial, the various ways of smuggling into a country, the persons the illegal immigrants came into contact with, how they tried to find jobs and hide from the police, and much more, came to light.
56 These are languages I am qualified in to interpret in Court.
27 Besides illegal immigrants, I also came into contact with other immigration offenders charged in Court, such as the people in Singapore who harboured these immigrants and provided them with jobs, running the risks of infringing the laws. Thus, I have not only information on the immigrants themselves, but also the people who aided them in doing so.
I was also able to look at the matter from the eyes of the law enforcers, i.e. the
Prosecutors and Judges, as they sometimes gave their comments on a case. Hence, I was able to garner all the first-hand background information necessary for, and establish links with the agencies directly linked to, my research. This experience is extremely important especially considering the lack of data and direct information relating to the illegal immigrants in published studies, and it adds a personal touch to this research.
This first-hand information is also important in another way. Records of most immigration cases, especially those involving illegal entry, are not easily obtainable. This is because the Singapore Law Reports and the database LawNet, which most judges and lawyers rely on to source for precedents of cases, only contain cases with Grounds of
Decisions written. These are cases in which appeals have been filed. Data for majority of the immigration cases, especially those concerning illegal entry, will not be in these records, as most of the accused persons would have pleaded guilty and few appeals had been filed.
Hence, such data, unless obtained first hand or reported in the newspapers, would be lost among the tens of thousands of cases dealt with every year in the Subordinate Courts.
28 Timeframe of Study
As illegal immigration is an ongoing issue, I shall try as much as possible to include recent data. The most recent statistics released by the ICA on its website is updated to the year
2007. As for newspaper articles, the most recent articles up till June 2009 were used.
Research Problems
Several problems were faced in undertaking this research. A major problem was
the lack of published data. The data on illegal immigrants published by the
Singapore Government is truly limited and very general. For example, the total number of immigration offenders charged each year is published, but there is no breakdown of numbers such as exactly how many came from which country. Hence, to get an estimation of the breakdown figure, I sat through the Mention Court sessions at the Subordinate Courts of Singapore for a period of two months. A serious gap in the available data is the lack of
Statement of Facts for offenders of illegal entry, overstaying and migrant smuggling. The
SOFs for abetment, harbouring, and employment were much more easily obtainable as there are published works on them by the Subordinate Courts and they are more readily available on LawNet or the Singapore Law Reports as more appeals have been filed for such cases. However, those for illegal entry offenders and overstayers are not so easily obtainable. As explained above, few appeals have been filed for such cases, and as such, the data for these cases would not be available in the Singapore Law Reports or the LawNet.
Hence, I had to resort to building scenarios based on those that I had read or heard from immigration offenders or those in direct contact with them. As for migrant smugglers, it must be noted that even the combination of all the resources that I have used may not throw
29 enough light on them. The data and background of the snakeheads, for example, are not able to be derived from such sources. After all, court records are limited to what was being said in Court sessions; not what was not said. The background information of the offenders would usually surface when they gave their mitigation pleas, but not all would use their family background as mitigating factors. The snakeheads especially would want to keep their background and their operations a secret so as to avoid further implications.
Background information on the snakeheads is therefore unlikely to be recorded in the court records. For the same reason, the snakeheads are unlikely to grant newspaper journalists interviews or to reveal too much information on their background to them. In the first place, even if one has contacts with people likely to be snakeheads, I doubt an interview would even be granted, for their activities are clandestine in nature and have to remain that way57.
Moreover, most of the people I spoke to preferred to keep their identities confidential.
However, in order to depict a more accurate picture of such clandestine activities, the only way is inevitably to stay in constant contact with the subjects of the research, and also with the people who come in constant contact with such subjects. Only then can the researcher ensure the credibility of the research and that there are constant viewpoints on certain claims that are not easily proven.
Another problem is my lack of opportunity to conduct direct interviews with the illegal immigrants. I attempted to obtain permission to interview the illegal immigrants but was turned down due to security reasons. Hence, I had to rely on past experiences to gather information on the background of these illegal immigrants and situation they faced. I
57 While doing my research, I came across someone who told me that her relative was likely to be involved in snakehead activities, but when I asked if I could speak with her relative, I was turned down right away.
30 conducted interviews with the Court Interpreters for illegal immigrants from other countries such as Indonesia and Thailand to broaden my data.
Accuracy and reliability of the sources are also important considerations when it comes to limitations. Information from primary sources such as the SOFs is derived from police investigations. These are usually taken from statements recorded from the immigration offenders and possible witnesses. Hence, the information relies much on the memory and candidness of the immigration offender. Besides, the SOFs only relates to the circumstances leading to the arrest of the accused person, not his or her personal background. Such information would have to come from the accused person’s mitigation, or those who are able to have direct conversations with the accused person.
Despite these various problems, I am confident that the methodologies used in collecting data on illegal immigration to Singapore are rigorous and extensive, and hope that the findings of this research project will enrich the knowledge on the history and current situation of illegal immigration to Singapore and its implications.
Structure of the Thesis
This thesis is divided into six chapters. Following this introductory chapter:
Chapter Two has two parts. The first focuses on human smuggling. It surveys the literature on human smuggling in Southeast Asia and discusses the history of the network between the Southeast Asian human smugglers and those of China, using Fujian Province as an example. This network reveals Singapore’s role in the networking system in the past as well as the present, both as destination and transit point to other places in Southeast Asia.
The second part traces the development of Immigration laws and regulations from colonial
31 times to the present. Comparisons are drawn between the pre and post-war period and the period after the Independence of Singapore. The reasons behind the making and amendments of the immigration laws are evaluated. Singapore’s economic growth and its impact on the formulation and revision of the immigration laws are discussed. Together, the two parts formed the background for my later chapters.
Chapter Three briefly traces the development of Southeast Asian nations as a whole to show how difference in pace of development affects the flow of illegal immigrants to Singapore. Profiles of illegal immigrants and reasons for their migration are given. The importance of the historical networks is manifested through the ways these illegal immigrants gained entry into Singapore, and the changes in methods used in recent decades, as well as the changes in government policies.
Chapter Four focuses on the various parties and stakeholders in the migrant smuggling operations and the networking of these parties of interest to make sure the operations were successful and smooth running, with Singapore as one of the transit points.
The chapter also focuses on the part that Singapore and Singaporeans play, both directly and indirectly, in these clandestine activities.
Chapter Five focuses on the life of the illegal immigrants in Singapore and illegal activities they are involved in, manifesting the discrepancies between their expectations and the reality, and also to show how little has changed throughout the centuries in this aspect.
Focus will also be given to the “snakeheads”, the masterminds of the smuggling operations, as facilitators for the employers and harbourers of illegal immigrants. The impact on the abettors of these illegal immigrants and on Singapore as a whole is also discussed. The
32 views of the Singapore public and the government are established through evaluation of the information in reports of parliamentary debates as well as articles in the newspapers.
Chapter Six summarises the findings of this research project and presents conclusions based on the research findings, aiming to show how court records can be used to suggest the government’s stand on the issue (in the considerations judges gave in sentencing) as well as the plight and background of the illegal immigrants (in the mitigating factors given by the accused persons, i.e. the illegal immigrants). In both Aku and Karayuki
San and Ricksaw Coolie, James Warren has very effectively used court records, especially the Coroner’s records in presenting the lives of the women and to give these little people a voice58. It is also the aim of this thesis to combine the use of court records, the newspaper reports as well as the published research papers to present a more holistic picture of the issue of illegal immigration in Singapore and at the same time show how the phenomenon of illegal immigration, which is a part and parcel of Singapore’s progress and migration history, can be brought to light with a historical approach.
58 Warren, James, Ah Ku and Karayuki San; Rickshaw Coolie: A People's History of Singapore, 1880-1940, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2003.
33 CHAPTER TWO:
EARLY AND COLONIAL SINGAPORE: HISTORICAL NETWORKS,
HUMAN SMUGGLING ACTIVITIES AND IMMIGRATION LAWS
In 2004, the newly formed Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore
(ICA) published a comprehensive book titled Guardians of Our Homeland: The Heritage of Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, about the activities and the importance of the
Authority in guarding Singapore from illegal activities such as the smuggling of illicit goods and migrants into Singapore.59 The book begins with two short paragraphs on
Singapore before 1819 and thereafter little else was mentioned about the history of
Singapore before the arrival of the British. It is hardly surprising that this was the case as there were proper Immigration Laws in place only after the arrival of the British, and as I have stated earlier in Chapter One, it was only with the existence of Immigration Laws that migrants were divided into the categories of “legal” and “illegal”. However, to better understand the development of the immigration history of Singapore, be it the legal or illegal part, and especially the illegal part, the earlier history of Singapore and the historical networks present before the arrival of the British should not be totally ignored. In fact, just as a country does not appear suddenly, the current state of events regarding immigration did not suddenly develop after the arrival of the British.
59 Teo, Delia and Liew, Clement, Guardians of Our Homeland: The Heritage of Immigration & Checkpoint Authority, Singapore: Immigration & Checkpoints Authority, 2004. The Authority was formed in 2003, integrating the former Singapore Immigration & Registration (SIR) and the Customs & Excise Department (CED).
34 Although it may be nothing more than a hypothesis to suggest that the current migrant smuggling activities have direct links with the historical networks that have been in place for centuries, it is nevertheless important to point out that the advantages of natural and even man-made conditions that were present within or around the Singapore waters centuries ago are still very much valid in current times. The present networks for illicit activities may or may not have any direct links with previous networks, but they are using the very same conditions that facilitate such illicit activities and are making use of the lack of coordination and cooperation of the countries in the region to carry on with their profitable trades. To put it broadly, the countries in the region may have developed, the techniques of both smuggling and security may have advanced, the modes of operation of both the smugglers and the law enforcers may have changed, but the circumstances and conditions that have facilitated such contraband activities have prevailed for a long time and have remained till the present day. Hence, I feel that it is necessary to dig into the early history of Singapore and pursue the development of the historical networks even before the arrival of the British in order to give a fuller picture of the development of migrant smuggling activities in Singapore. The background of natural geographical conditions and historical networks will also be important to later chapters of this thesis, especially
Chapters Three and Five, when the methods of smuggling and comparisons among countries in the region are made.
As the focus of this thesis is on the Chinese and their links with both Chinese and non-Chinese illegal immigrants, discussion only on maritime development of Southeast
Asia, especially around Singapore waters, will not be sufficient. More importantly, the
Chinese middlemen had played and are still playing a crucial role in migrant smuggling
35 activities in the region (this will be further discussed in Chapter Three). A discussion of the major migrant-sending provinces in China, using the Fujian province as an example, will also be made to provide a broader picture of the trading networks, both legal and illegal. In this aspect, this thesis focuses on Fujian Province for several reasons. Firstly, the Hokkiens
(people from the southern regions of Fujian Province) have established their presence in the region since as early as the fourteenth century and now form the largest dialect group among the Chinese in Singapore60. Secondly, the province has a long history of sea-trading networks and most unauthorised migrants came from Fujian61. Hence, it is used as an example to show that the Chinese had established themselves in the region since a very early age with extensive networking.
The first part of this chapter seeks to discuss the importance of the earlier history of
Singapore, the historical networks around Singapore waters that have been in place before the arrival of the British leading up to the founding of Singapore in 1819, as well as during the colonial period. There will be two lines of focus: the development of Singapore and the networks formed by various groups of locals and foreigners around it, as well as the
Chinese networks, focusing on Fujian province, one of the major areas of the Silk Road of the Sea. The second part will focus on the development of immigration in Colonial
Singapore. Together, the two parts form the background scenario for the activities discussed in the next three chapters of this thesis.
60 The Singapore Year 2000 Census of Population shows that out of around 2.5 million people of the Chinese ethnic group, around one million of them were Hokkiens. Information retrieved from Statistics Singapore: http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/popn/c2000sr1/t1-7.pdf. [Date accessed: 07/07/2009] 61 Zai Liang and Ye Wenzhen, “From Fujian to New York: Understanding the New Chinese Immigration”, in David Kyle and Rey Koslowski eds, Global Human Smuggling: Comparative Perspectives, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001, pp. 187-215, Karen Mah, “Where Do Most Chinese Illegal Aliens Originate?”, Chinese Human Smuggling (U.S. Department of State, International Information Programs, http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/ea/Chinaaliens, 2003. [Date accessed: 10/19/2003].
36
Early Singapore History
Until recent years, relatively little has been known on the history of early Singapore.
In fact, there was a lack of interest in finding out what happened before the arrival of the
British, and several important monuments that could have been significant in the discovery of the history of early Singapore were destroyed. Through documentary evidence derived from the records of foreign sources, such as early Dutch and Portuguese records, British observations, Chinese accounts and even Malay literature, together with archaeological artifacts found, it can now be convincingly determined that there were economic activities going on in Singapore long before the British came and Singapore had in fact been a trading port from as early as the fourteenth century62. John Miksic, in his article “14th-
Century Singapore: A Port of Trade”, concluded that Singapore “appeared as a centre of trading activity”, though it was not the first of its type and there had been a few others before it. Miksic makes the important point that one of the earliest accounts of Singapore, that of Wang Dayuan, indicated that “the Chinese lived mixed up among the natives”, which showed that not only were there Chinese settled in Singapore, but also that they were allowed to mix with the local population.63 Wang’s records also portrayed Singapore as “a fairly active settlement” which “existed on piracy and trade for its living”.64 Singapore was then known as Temasek, or Tumasik, though Wang refers to Singapore as “Long Ya-men”
(Dragon Teeth Gate or Dragon Tooth Strait).
62 Foreign accounts include travel memoirs by Chinese trader Wang Dayuan, the Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals, Portuguese historians, even Marco Polo. 63 John N. Miksic, “14th-Century Singapore: A Port of Trade”, in, Early Singapore: 1300s-1819, John N. Miksic and Cheryl-Ann Low Mei Gek eds, Singapore: Singapore History Museum, 2005, pp.41-54. 64 Taken from Ernest Chew and Edwin Lee eds, A History of Singapore, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1991, Chapter one.
37 During the 14th century, Temasek was a dependency of Srivijiya, and was later a vassal state of Majapahit after a Thai siege was repelled. At around 1390, a young
Palembang prince known as Parameswara came to Temasek, murdered the local chief, and ruled Singapore for five years. He was eventually driven out by the king of Siam and fled to and founded Melaka around the turn of the century. At around this period the term
Singapura began to be used, and Singapore remained a vassal of the new Melaka kingdom.65
Up till this time, Singapore apparently did not seem to be of any importance at all.
Yet according to records and recent excavations, Singapore already had products of its own and was involved in the Chinese ceramics and foodstuff trade. According to Wang, the local products of Singapore were wood and tin. His memoirs also indicated that Chuzhou
(Fujian) stoneware was imported by Temasek. Fine ceramics from the kiln districts of
Guangzhou (Guangdong) and Quanzhou (Fujian) were also found from excavations in
Singapore.66 Large amounts of storage jars excavated in Singapore and around the region also indicated that foodstuff trade was a significant part of trade between China and the
Malay world.
The rise of a minor port polity such as Singapore certainly does not lie solely on the development of Singapore itself but was dependent on external factors both in the region and in China. After the fall of the Srivijayan capital of Jambi, there was no regional hegemonic polity in the region, thus providing the opportunity for minor port polities to rise.
65 For the history of the Srivijaya kingdom and the trade routes that existed, consult O.W. Wolter’s work, The Fall of Srivijaya in Malay History, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1970. 66 Findings of excavations and analysis of data in this area can be found in Derek Heng Thiam Soon’s article, “Economic Networks between the Malay Region and the Hinterlands of Quanzhou and Guangzhou: Temasek and the Chinese Ceramics and Foodstuff Trade”, in John Miksic and Cheryl-Ann Low Mei Gek eds., Early Singapore 1300s – 1819, Chapter 4.
38 Moreover, during the fourteenth century, the Chinese traders were already active in
Southeast Asia and new trade zones were formed, linking Asia and Europe in direct trade.
According to Kenneth Hall, goods from China to Europe had to pass through at least six trade zones, with three in Asia: the first centred in southern China, involving ports along
Vietnam coast, Gulf of Thailand down to east coast of Malay Peninsula, the Philippines, which contact was made with ports in Java; the second controlled by Javanese-based commercial groups and stretched to the Spice Islands, Sulawesi, Borneo and Mindanao in the East and Sumatra in the West, joining another zone at Malacca; the third comprised ports along the two coasts of India, which connected with the second zone67. Temasek was just one of the minor port polities in this trading network. The extent of trading activities in individual port polities like Temasek was not able to be established due to lack of more information and data.
However, it is interesting to note that, though being only a minor port in the region,
Temasek appeared to be rather well fortified. According to the observations made by Dr
John Crawford in 1822 when he first arrived in Singapore, there was already some form of fortification in Singapore and this was indeed highly uncommon as no similar permanent fortifications were found in all of Sumatra. This leads to the suggestion that the residents of Singapore then believed that they were somewhat threatened and were prepared for some kind of an encounter such as a siege, which was rare during that time in Southeast Asia.
Wang had in fact in his account mentioned a siege by the Thais for over a month68.
67 Kenneth R. Hall, Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985, Chapter 8, pp.223-225. 68 A detailed description of the military condition of Singapore during the 14th century was presented in Chapter One of Malcolm H Murfett et.al, Between Two Oceans: A Military History of Singapore from the First Settlement to Final British Withdrawal, Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Academic, 2004, pp. 18-31.
39 Nevertheless, this could suggest some form of strategic importance of the location of
Singapore during that period. However, by the time the British set foot on the island,
Singapore had become nothing more than a small village with a population of about 1,500 under the control of a Malay Chief known as the Temenggong. 69 Nevertheless, the networks that have been established around Singapore and in the region have remained regardless of the fate and fortune of the many minor port polities.
The Eve of Colonial Singapore: Piracy, Smuggling and the Importance of Singapore
As Kwa Chong Guan (2004) puts:
“Much, of not most, of Singapore’s history is about what happened on the island…But if we were to shift our position and view Singapore’s past not from the mouth of the Singapore River, but from the gebrooken eilanden or ‘broken islands’ south of Singapore, then there was…a substantial amount of activities. It was to control these waters around Singapore that the Malays, Portuguese and Dutch manoeuvred around and challenged each other. Raffle’s establishment of an EIC settlement and trading port in Singapore was not about gaining territory, but for control of the waterways for British shipping.” 70
Indeed, much of the activities involving Singapore happened outside the island itself. The waters surrounding Singapore had been both battlegrounds for various local and colonial powers and hideouts for the pirates and smugglers in the region, and were an area of strategic importance, just as Singapore is in the present day. Peter Borschberg presented an interesting article on a naval battle between the Dutch and the Portuguese on the Straits of Singapore in 1603, triggered by the incident of a Portuguese merchant vessel carrying
69 More information on the rise of Singapore, the relationship between the British and the Malay chiefs, as well as the Chinese settlements as Singapore became a colonial state can be found in Carl Trocki’s Prince of Pirates, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1979, Chapters 1-4. 70 Kwa Chong Guan, “Sailing Past Singapore”, in Early Singapore 1300s-1819, pp. 103-104.
40 valuable cargo which was attacked and seized by the Johorians.71 The Dutch and the
Johorians had made use of the region around the Straits of Singapore which they thought to be “a dangerous maze of islets, reefs and sandbank that lay in shallow waters or which only surfaced at low tide”72. The description of the battle fully illustrated the danger of the waters and the numerous hideouts where prahus and other vessels could suddenly appear without any warning and that successful control of the Straits would mean victory. The natural surroundings of the region made it one of the best areas for pirates. Eric
Tagliacozzo has also examined in his work how ports like Singapore emerged as ideal centres for smuggling activities and how the various stakeholders were able to transcend borders and cross the boundaries between the British and Dutch territories.73
The British soon found themselves facing the problem of pirate attacks not long after the founding of Singapore in 1819. In fact, piracy was the main threat to Singapore’s trade in the next 30 years from 1820. The very founding of Singapore and the rapid success of its trade triggered “one of the highest rates of maritime raiding in Southeast Asia”74.
What is significant about these pirate attacks is that due to the natural surroundings of countless islands with lots of hiding places, there can be no escape for the trading ships from the pirates. The pirates such as the fearful Iranuns only had to wait in one of the sheltered islands for their prey. Although security has been stepped up, there was really
71 Peter Borschberg, “A Portuguese-Dutch Naval Battle in the Johor River Estuary and the Liberation of Johor Lama in 1603”, in Early Singapore 1300s-1819, Chapter 7. More information on the actual incident involving the vessel Sta. Catarina can be found in an earlier work by Dr. Borschberg, “The Seizure of the Sta. Catarina Revisited: The Portuguese Empire in Asia, VOC Politics and the Origins of the Dutch-Johor Alliance (1602- c.1616)”, in Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 33:1, Feb 2002, pp. 31-62. 72 Ibid., pp. 108. 73 Eric Tagliacozzo, Secret Trades, Porous Borders. 74 James Warren, “A Tale of Two Centuries: The Globalisation of Maritime Raiding and Piracy in Southeast Asia at the end of the Eighteenth and Twentieth Century”, Asia Research Institute Working Paper Series No. 2, June 2003, pp. 9; it was later published in Warren’s latest compilation, Pirates, prostitutes and pullers: explorations in the ethno- and social history of Southeast Asia, Crawley, W.A.: University Of Western Australia Press, 2008.
41 very little real cooperation among the various powers to curb piracy and many of the locals were in fact involved in these piracy activities. Warren argued that the situation has not changed very much in the twentieth century, though the weapons and modes of operations have changed, the pirates two centuries ago and the present day pirates still prey on the same waters.
One of the routes most vulnerable to attacks is the Straits of Malacca, and the tightest security are still not able to beat geography, for security efforts by one country alone cannot solve problems and the later chapters of this thesis will show that the circumstances giving rise to migrant smuggling are somewhat similar. Adam Young also showed the endemic nature of piracy and how piracy has continued to evolve with the times and adapted to the new environments.75 In the past, piracy has been linked to the slave trade but in the present day, the illegal traffic in migrants as well as women and children has replaced the slaves.
The smuggling of migrants did not only occur in recent years though. In fact, even a hundred years ago at the turn of the twentieth century, people were already being ferried to various different places in the region against the wishes of the colonial rulers76. Eric
Tagliocozzo dedicated a whole chapter in his work on human trafficking during the period focusing on three groups: concubines and prostitutes, slaves and undocumented coolies. In the present situation of human smuggling in Singapore, the categories of prostitutes and illegal workers are still valid, though one may argue that the way these illegal migrants
75 Adam J. Young, “Roots of Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia”, in Derek Johnson and Mark J. Valencia eds, Piracy in Southeast Asia: status, issue and responses, Leiden ; [Great Britain] : International Institute for Asian Studies, 2005, pp. 1-33. 76 Both Eric Tagliacozzo and James Warren discussed this trend in their respective works, Secret Trades, Porous Borders, and Aku and Karayuki-san.
42 were treated and the conditions they were in put them in a position no better than slaves.
This will again be discussed in Chapters Three and Four of this thesis.
The Chinese Middlemen
Having briefly looked at the circumstances of early Singapore and the networks surrounding its waters, it is time for an important group of people to be discussed: the
Chinese. As stated earlier, the Chinese arrived in Southeast Asia as early as the 14th century and they were not only involved in legal trade. They were in fact also involved in all sorts of contraband trade, working side by side with the locals. Be it in legal or illegal trade, the Chinese had control of them77. These Chinese were usually middlemen and not only served their own people but also all other overseas merchants. Tagliocozzo’s work also shows that the Chinese were heavily involved in various different illicit transactions such as drugs, human trafficking, counterfeits etc. As Chapter Four of this thesis will discuss, the Chinese snakeheads are also middlemen who have links with all other groups of snakeheads in Singapore.
The fact that the Chinese can be this successful and widespread in their links was not a coincidence. Those actively involved in the contraband trade were mostly from the coastal provinces of Fujian and Guangdong, the locations of some of the most prominent ports of the Maritime Silk Road. These networks had been established for many centuries, due to both geographical and historical factors.
77 Philip D. Curtin dedicated a Chapter describing the activities of the Chinese, Bugis and Banians in Southeast Asia in Cross-cultural Trade in World History, Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1984. For a Chinese perspective on piracy and the relationship between the Chinese Empire and the European powers, as well as the activities of infamous Chinese pirates, consult Xu Ke’s “Piracy, Seaborne Trade and the Rivalries of the Foreign Sea Powers in East and Southeast Asia, 1511- 1839: A Chinese Perspective”, in Derek Johnson and Mark J. Valencia eds, Piracy in Southeast Asia: status, issue and responses, pp. 221-240.
43 Having looked at a brief development of early Singapore, it is also necessary to turn to
China and look at how the South Chinese established their overseas networks. As stated earlier in this chapter, I have chosen Fujian as the focus as it is one of the most important regions in maritime China with a reputation of being the Silk Route of the Sea and has had a long history of maritime networks. Moreover, in the present day, most of China’s illegal emigrants depart from Fujian province78.
Fujian’s Trading Network and the Silk Road of the Sea
Located on the south-eastern coast of China and commonly known as “the south- eastern country of mountains”, Fujian is a mountainous province79 and this made it one of the most isolated provinces of China, for travel and communication between interior Fujian and neighbouring provinces became limited to only three routes. 80 Water travel was essential and waterways were always used for transport purposes. It also has limited plains and cultivatable land with only 10.4% of arable land, yet it is a largely agricultural-based province.81 Although one of China’s smallest provinces, Fujian is one of China’s most densely populated provinces, ranked fourteen in the whole of China with a population density of 224 people per sq. km .82 This natural geographical formation coupled with the
78 Karen Mah, “Where Do Most Chinese Illegal Aliens Originate?” 79 The Encyclopaedia of Chinese Counties Series 《中国县情大全》, East China Volume 华东卷, Beijing: Zhong Guo She Hui Chu Ban She, 1993, Fujian Province chapter, pp.913; China Today Series 当代中国丛 书，《当代中国的福建》上册 (China Today: Fujian, Book One), Beijing: Dang Dai Zhong Guo Chu Ban She, 1991, Introduction, pp.2 80 Rawski, Evelyn Sakakida, Agricultural Change and the Peasant Economy of South China, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1972, pp.59. Detailed descriptions of these routes were provided in a chapter dedicated to Fujian Province. 81 China Today: Fujian, Introduction, pp.1-3. 82 Ibid., pp.1.
44 population density was to have great effects on the livelihood and the mobility of its people, which will be explored in later sections.
A more important geographical feature of Fujian is its coastal line, which length occupies one-sixth of the whole of China’s, and is only second to Guangdong. The unevenness of its coastline, however, topped the whole country, and this unique natural environment blesses Fujian with lots of good sheltered harbours. Moreover, there are many islands surrounding Fujian province, totaling 1202 in numbers, and most of which are very close to the mainland. These islands provided natural shelters for the harbours and became good bases not only for the development of fisheries, but also for overseas ventures via the sea.83 Fujian is furthermore blessed with good forests. Its forested area ranked top in mainland China, and is thus one of the most important forested areas in Southern China, supplying many different types of good quality wood.84 This advantage turns out to be most useful when it comes to shipbuilding and complements sea travel perfectly.
The command of the sea by the Fujianese opened up many domestic and overseas opportunities for them throughout history, and the strong overseas affiliation especially has played and is still playing an important part in the development of the province itself. This affiliation is what few other provinces in China possess, with the exception of its neighbour
Guangdong.
Fujian’s history is certainly closely linked to its geographical conditions, be it good or bad. Due to its difficult landscape, sea route became essential and its history was bound by the sea. Its people live by the sea, and on the sea.
83 Ibid., pp.5-6. 84 Ibid., pp.4-5.
45 Part of the region known as Fujian today first came under China’s rule during the
Han Dynasty, and during the period of The Three Kingdoms, the region under Sun Quan’s rule in the Kingdom of Wu was already very close to those within present-day boundaries of Fujian. 85 Even during those early periods, sea power was already of significant importance, and many of the wars fought in the region were by sea.
Fujian has been one of the major maritime trading centres as early as the ninth century.86 With its unique geographical feature of being surrounded by mountains and oceans, Fujian’s external cultural interaction is destined to be inseparable from its relationship with the sea .87 Not only was its cultural development dependent on the sea, its people’s livelihood and mobility, especially of the Southern part of the province, were to a large extent dependent on it.
The maritime network of Fujian, especially places like Amoy, or Xiamen and
Quanzhou, has been very significant in Chinese maritime history. During the Song period,
Fujian’s commercial activities were already so well established that the Fujian merchants won themselves of the name hai-shang (sea merchants).88 At its peak in this period, Fujian largest ports, for example Quanzhou, had trading links with more than forty countries around the world, from the nearest such as Japan to as far as Arabia and the African coasts, and became one of the centres of China’s external cultural exchange.89 Quanzhou, which became China’s largest port in the late thirteenth century, was also well-known to the West.
85 Ibid., pp.7-9. 86 Ng Chin-keong, Trade and Society: The Amoy Network on the China Coast 1683-1735, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1983, pp.1. 87 Fujian Ideological and Cultural History Series 福建思想文化丛书， 《福建对外文化交流史》 （The History of Fujian’s External Cultural Exchange）, Fuzhou: Fu Jian Jiao Yu Chu Ban She, 1997, pp.1. 88 Ng, Trade and Society, pp.11-12. Ng presented a very comprehensive discussion about the commercial activities and the network in Amoy. 89 History of Fujian’s External Cultural Exchange, pp.2.
46 Its maritime trading system was so successful that it is certainly one of the most important areas along the “Silk Road of the Sea”. Indeed, few other provinces in China could match or share the same activity with Fujian. Although the Quanzhou port started to decline in the late fourteenth century, it was replaced by other Fujian ports such as Zhangzhou.
The almost continuous proliferation of Fujian’s ports and its external relations became a catalyst for the emigration of its people, and some of the earliest settlements of overseas Chinese communities were formed by the Hokkiens. During the later part of
Chinese history, ordinary Fujianese who were not traders also flocked overseas, due to a combination of several push and pull factors. One important factor is the limitation of arable land in Fujian. With the population growth brought by increased agricultural production as a result of improved technology, man to land ratio fell and the shortage of land issue became acute after mid-Ming.90 The population pressure thus further encouraged the outward venture of the Fujian people in search of better lives and for survival overseas.
This outflow of people continued right up to modern times and from this, a unique affiliation among the people in Fujian province and the Chinese of Fujian origin in other countries was formed.
Fujian and its Overseas Affiliations
Due to Fujian’s unique conditions and historical developments, numerous of its people were to be found in many other parts of the world, especially Southeast Asia. The
Cantonese, Hokkien and Teochiu settlers were the earliest and are still among the most numerous of the overseas Chinese and all these three groups were from the provinces of
90 The land issue and other push factors for the outflow of the Fujianese were discussed in detail in Ng’s article. He combined the arguments of scholars such as Rawski as well as contradicting views from other scholars like Shimizu Taiji and Luo Ergang.
47 Guangdong and Fujian. 91 With the exception of perhaps Hainan, none of the other provinces in China share this same trait of having large groups of their people overseas until very recent years. Even if they do have many of their people overseas nowadays, there is no forming of large and stable communities like those of the groups mentioned above including the Hakkas.
During the last century, many of these overseas Fujianese people settled down and became the citizens of their adopted countries, especially in places like Malaysia and
Singapore. A significant number have been successful in their ventures and accumulated wealth in these adopted countries, yet still maintaining ties with their kinsmen in Fujian province. From the sending of hard-earned money back to their homeland since the beginning, these now prosperous Fujianese people have been investing heavily in the economy and industry of their place of origin.92 The current development and growth of major migrant-sending regions in Fujian province is heavily dependent on the investments of these overseas fellowmen .93
It is under the context of the relative prosperity of Fujian province in the present day and the huge sums of money poured into Fujian by overseas Chinese that Zai Liang and Ye
Wenzhen argued that the current day illegal immigration by the Fujianese people is not so much driven by desperation to escape poverty but by deprivation felt by the locals when
91 This has been discussed in Chapter One. For the migration of the Chinese people throughout history and the overseas Chinese, the works of numerous scholars such as Wung Gung-wu, Anthony Reid, C.P. FitzGerald, and Victor Purcell, just to name a few, presented interesting discussions and analysis on this topic 92 Zai Liang and Ye Wenzhen, “From Fujian to New York: Understanding the New Chinese Immigration”, in David Kyle and Rey Koslowski eds, Global Human Smuggling, pp. 187-215. 93 Ibid.
48 they saw how prosperous their neighbours with overseas relatives have become.94 This will again be further discussed in Chapter Three.
With the historical networks of smuggling in place during the colonial times, the
British, in order to safeguard the very existence of Singapore, established tighter laws to keep the situation in control. The next part of this Chapter shall discuss the implementation and the development of Immigration Laws in Singapore till the present day.
Immigration Laws in Colonial Singapore
As Yap Mui Teng states, “While the colonial and post-colonial governments in
Singapore since its establishment as a British colony in the early 1800s have at various times tried to control migration growth, they have always welcomed immigrants who can contribute economically”. 95 The attitude of both Singapore’s colonial and independent government have towards migrants has been more of “control” than anything else; this is especially true for the independent government. It is true that the governments of both periods had always welcomed “immigrants who can contribute economically” 96 to
Singapore”, but this phrase is rather vague and is also relative in definition. One tends to run into problems of defining “who” can actually contribute to the Singapore economy and in what ways? Unless the government places a clear definition on the phrase, anyone who is gainfully employed in one way or another, whether legally or illegally, whether skilled or
94 Ibid. 95 Taken from Yap MuiTeng’s article, “The Singapore State’s Response to Migration”, Sojourn ,1999 , pp. 198. 96 Ibid.
49 unskilled, can be said to be “contributing economically”. And if the government places such a definition on exactly what kind of people, or which group of people is the type that fits the description, then clearly the government is setting a particular standard for the kind of immigrants who are welcomed in Singapore. By setting such a standard, the government is already controlling the type of migrants to be accepted into the Singapore economy.
Both the colonial and post-colonial governments wanted to establish control, but for relatively different reasons. Moreover, their attitudes towards migration were initially rather different. The founding of Singapore by the British was essentially to find a base in the region to control the waterways of the trade route linking the East to the West. They were more interested in securing the trade route. Initially, there was no restriction placed on the number of immigrants welcomed to Singapore; in fact, mass immigration was greatly encouraged, as the British wanted to develop Singapore into a free port. It was only later when problems initially unforeseen and also due to the global situation then that the
British started to impose restrictions on the number of immigrants to Singapore. The independent government97, on the other hand, had a relatively clear immigration policy right from the start. This is partly a continuation of the precedence set by the colonial government, but the new government is also at the same time trying to exert itself as an independent country that is able to decide on its own fate and through effective governing and control, become a very successful nation. The tightening control is also deemed necessary by the independent government as Singapore is now one of the most successful young nations in the region, and as one of the region’s greatest transit points, it is important to have effective control, especially so for security reasons. This part of the chapter
97 Singapore gained full independence on 9th August 1965 when it broke off from the Federation of Malaya.
50 therefore traces the development of Immigration Laws in Singapore from the dawn of such laws to its independence, with the focus on the Chinese immigrants, and thereafter the development of national registration in independent Singapore.
The Colonial Times (the initial century)
When Singapore was founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819, it was as Mary
Turnbull had put, “An unwanted child, foisted upon the English East India Company”.98
Despite its excellent location and natural advantages, it was only a small village of about a thousand inhabitants, consisting of Orang Kallang, Orang Seletar, Orang Gelam, some
Malays and Chinese .99 Nevertheless, the fact that there was a certain population who made
Singapore their home shows that migration had already started. Migration laws, however, had not yet been established, and thus the notion of “illegal migration” is not yet relevant.
With Raffles came a group of Indians who then settled in Singapore. Large numbers would follow in the years to come. According to Teo and Liew, the largest group of immigrants, the Chinese, ironically, was the last to make contact with Singapore, in
1821.100 It should however be noted that back in 1819, Chinese settlers have arrived in
Singapore, only that they were not from China, but from the nearer Riau Archipelago as well as from Malacca. 101 Nevertheless, the colonial government did not impose any restrictions on the number of people entering or exiting the young colony of Singapore then.
98 Turnbull, Mary C., A History of Singapore 1819-1988, Singapore: Oxford University Press, pp. xii, Introduction to the first edition. For details on various Malay tribes and the Malay World, consult Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou eds, Tribal Communities in the Malay World: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives, Singapore: ISEAS, 2002 99 Ibid., pp. 5. 100 Delia Teo and Clement Liew, Guardians of Our Homeland, pp. 5. 101 Lim Joo Hock, Chinese Female Immigration into the Straits Settlements, 1860-1901, academic exercise of the Department of History, University of Malaya, 1952. pp. 61.
51 With this laissez faire attitude towards migration, the population of the colony grew steadily.
During the initial years, there were three types of Chinese who came to Singapore, those acquainted with British and Dutch administrations though their sojourns in the Malay archipelago, those who resided in the region for several generations and those who came directly from China, but who were likely to have relatives in Nanyang102; all three groups were familiar with the region and came for the purposes of trading.103
Since 1840, there was a new trend that brought about labour transformation which was to have great impact on the development of Southeast Asian countries in the next century. Although Lynn Pan has attributed this change in pattern to the greatly increased volume of labour migrants from China, Amarjit Kaur has presented a full scenario of the globalization process from 1840 onwards, tracing the developments leading to the increase of indentured labour.104
From around this period, the methods of migration of the Chinese fall within these few types: “free” recruited immigration, indentured immigration which included recruitment by the recruiter-courier or coolie broker through the credit-ticket system, recruitment by trading companies and voluntary immigration. Those that were recruited freely only owed the sum for their passages to Malaya. Those who came under the credit- ticket system would have their passages paid by prospective employers in the new land through agents (coolie brokers) and were supposed to work for a specific period of time to
102 The term “Nanyang” means “the southern seas” and generally refers to Southeast Asia and the tropics. 103 Pan, Lynn ed., The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas, Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, c2006, pp. 201. This observation was first made by Wang Gungwu. 104 For the circumstances leading to labour transformation in Southeast Asia and its impact, refer to Amarjit Kaur’s work, Wage labour in Southeast Asia since 1840 : globalization, the international division of labour, and labour transformations, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, c2004.
52 pay off their debts to their employers. As these workers were new comers to the colony and there was little government control over these methods, they were often the subjects of abuse. Moreover, as most of the immigrants were males, the sex ratio in the new colony was thus unbalanced and this led to problems such as prostitution. This in turn led to the proliferation of the trafficking in women.105 The networks for smuggling and trafficking were already very much in place by this time.
At the same time, the secret societies that were meant to offer protection to these
Chinese workers were also becoming a source of trouble.106 Due to the lack of supervision, some of these societies began running illegal businesses such as brothels and gambling dens and creating trouble such as riots. The police system was then weak and many policemen accepted bribes from these secret societies and were lax in carrying out their duties. Meanwhile, the poor working conditions of the coolies also led to the spread of diseases.107
Hence, during this period of time, a number of laws were passed to solve these problems. The measures taken by the government go in three directions: one is to control the abuses of the coolie trade; another is to regulate and control the vices and the spread of
105 For more detailed explanations, see, James Warren, Aku and Karayuki-san, Chapter Four; Eric Tagliacozzo, Secret Trades, Porous Borders, Chapter 10. 106 The secret societies in Singapore had their origins in the Triad Society in China formed by royalists of the Ming Dynasty to fight the Manchus. These societies emphasised the concept of “brotherhood” and had control of a large population of the Chinese during Colonial times. Besides taking care of their members in times of sickness and woes, these societies also sought justice in work arrangements for them. For works on the history of secret societies in Singapore, consult Lee Poh Ping, Chinese Society in Nineteenth Century Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, New York: Oxford University Press,1978; Zheng Wenhui 郑文辉,新加坡的私会 党 (Secret Societies in Singapore), Singapore: Xin wen hua ji gou, 1987; Mak Lau Fong, The Sociology of Secret Societies: A Study of Secret Societies in Singapore and Peninsula Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. 107 James Warren, Rickshaw Coolies: A People’s History of Singapore, 1880-1940.
53 diseases through the establishment of ordinances; the last is to set up a registration system to cope with a rapidly growing population of immigrants.
To stop the abuses of the coolie trade, the Coolie Immigration Bill was introduced in 1872. It was initially proposed in order to register the immigrants but was never implemented. In the same year, the Indian Government enacted legislation to control abuses in the labour recruitment system and Ordinance I was passed in 1876.108 In 1877, a second
Chinese Immigration Ordinance regulating the ships involved in the coolie trade was passed and a Crimping Ordinance was also passed to authorize the Chinese Protectorate to license recruiting agents. Registration of Chinese immigrants thus started on 1st October under the Chinese Protectorate, which was set up to address the problems faced by the colonial government and to act as a middleman between the Colonial government and the
Chinese residents.109
In terms of measures to curb diseases, the Quarantine “to make provision for the better prevention of the spread of contagious diseases”110 was enacted in 1866 and finally passed in 1868. The Quarantine and Prevention of Disease Ordinance was passed later in
1886. In 1869, the legislation to deal with societies, Dangerous Societies Suppression
Ordinance, was first introduced in the Colony.
For registration, several steps were taken to ensure successful administration by the government. In 1852, legislation was passed permitting the naturalization of Chinese settlers, thus giving local residents a choice to become British subjects. Several leading
108 Singapore, as part of the Straits Settlement, was initially under the control of British East India Company based in India, until it became a Crown colony in 1867 and was ruled directly from London. 109 Set up in 1877 and staffed by British officials, the Chinese Protectorate served as an administrative body in-charge of all matters relating to the Chinese residents in the Straits Settlements as well as to regulate the Coolie trade. It also tried to stop forced prostitution and protect the welfare of Chinese women. 110 Teo and Clement Liew, Guardians of Our Homeland, pp. 18.
54 Chinese merchants became naturalized British subjects as a result. In 1868, a Births and
Deaths Registration Ordinance was also passed and registration for Births and Deaths began. Registration at this point in time was, however, not compulsory.
Another special ordinance was introduced in 1888, and that is the Banishment
Ordinance which stated that any alien may be banished if it appears to the Government-in-
Council that his presence in the Colony is a threat to public safety or public welfare. This ordinance was introduced in an effort to maintain peace and order in the colony.
Apparently, this Banishment Ordinance was a tool to deal with the trouble that the Chinese had caused, as most of those who were banished were Chinese, and they could be banished for a wide variety of crimes, even relatively minor ones.111
However, it must be noted that the implementation of laws did not necessarily prove successful as the colonial government often had not enough manpower to carry them through and the Chinese Protectorate was always over-worked. Towards the end of the 19th century, there were already quite a number of ordinances introduced to curb the problems of the colony. However, it seems that the colonial government at this point in time was still not very organized and usually only implemented laws as the problem surfaced.
The First Half of the 20th Century
It was at the start of the new century that the structure for immigration laws began to really take shape. During this period, Singapore has already developed into a successful port and the demand for labourers remained high. Moreover, the rubber boom at the turn of the century meant that the colony now required more labourers to work on the rubber
111 Ibid., pp. 21.
55 plantations and this made the government even more reluctant to check on the large numbers of Chinese immigrants.
With the ever expanding migrant population, the Passengers Restriction Ordinance was introduced in 1919 to regulate all movement in and out of the Colony, and Alex Dixon became the first Immigration Officer in 1926. At this time, an immigration law was already in place to grant the police the authority to detain aliens within forty-eight hours of their arrival and also to send them back to the country of origin. As the government was eager to attract more immigrants, all coolies were allowed to land upon proof of vaccination. 112 Quarantine continued though, and health checks and inspections were carried out regularly. In fact, health and immigration officers were sent onto the arriving vessels to inspect the passengers by 1916. Passengers then had to be quarantined for two days to ensure they were healthy before they could reach Singapore. 113 The health inspections at that time were, however, still quite lax. As long as one could certify that his medical check was done earlier, then health checks were very brief and skimpy.
Until this point, all seemed well for the migrant who was generally welcomed by the colonial rulers. In the 1930s however, the situation was reversed. In 1928, the
Immigration Restriction Ordinance was first introduced. With its implementation in July
1930, the era of free immigration ended. From then on, only shipping companies, charterers and owners of individual ships who had previously maintained a regular service between
Singapore and China were allowed to carry Chinese passengers. The enforcement of the
Immigration Ordinance of 1930 further restricted the immigration of unskilled male labourers so as to improve labour standards and balance the sex ratio of immigrant
112 Ibid., pp. 24. 113 Ibid., pp. 27.
56 communities. The subsequent implementation of the 1932 Aliens Ordinance further extended government control to all immigrants who were not British or of a British- protected nationality. This regulated the admission and the choice of residence of aliens.
Another Alien Ordinance was introduced in 1933, giving the government more power to monitor and restrict the number of immigrants. The number of male adults would be adjusted according to labour demands. The Malayan Immigration Service was also established in 1933 to administer the Aliens Ordinance in the Straits Settlement and the
Aliens Enactment in the Federation of Malay States.
One thing to note is that the Aliens Ordinance and Banishment Ordinance during this period only applied to the Chinese but not to the Indians or Malays from other parts of the Malay World. It was the British government’s way of controlling the number of
Chinese immigrants during times of economic difficulty. The reason for not restricting the number of Indian immigrants was that so doing would affect India, which also belonged to the British, so instead of solving the problem, new ones would be created for the British.114
Moreover, events both in China and in Malaya were slowly changing and political inclinations were taking shape. The formation of the Singapore Malay Union in 1926 and the Malayan Communist Party in 1930 manifested the change in political climate.115 Hence, the implementation of the Aliens Ordinance was also a political decision to protect the
British interests in the Straits Settlements. This shows that the British way of controlling immigration, or rather the motives behind the control were entirely different from the independent government decades later. Just as they wanted to control Singapore for the effective control of the waterways, their control of immigration to Singapore was only
114 Ibid., pp. 29 to 31. 115 Ibid., pp. 34 to 38.
57 minimal and action would only be taken if problems arose. The interests of the British
Empire were always a priority.
Despite the Aliens Ordinance, there were still a large number of immigrants entering the Colony every year. Moreover, the exclusion of women and children from the
Ordinance meant that as a restriction policy, it was not effective. Nevertheless, the Aliens
Ordinance did build the foundation for future developments in immigration control structure, the beginning being the establishment of the Malayan Immigration Service established in 1933 to administer the Ordinance. The new Service was also bestowed with the powers of the Passenger Restriction Ordinance and Passport Ordinance, and the duties and power of the Immigration Department in the years to come would continue to expand.
Then came the war years. The Registration Ordinance was passed to make provision for the compulsory registration of male British subjects of pure European descent and who were of military age with the objective of facilitating the preparation of schemes for the best utilization of available manpower in cases of emergency. In 1938, the Registration of
Births and Death Ordinance was introduced and births and death registration became compulsory. Identity cards were first introduced in the late 1941 by the British Authorities when war came to Malaya, so as to identify any possible subversive individuals in the colony during those sensitive times. From 1942 to 1945, voluntary migration came to a standstill. This was not surprising as the whole population in Singapore suffered during the war years under Japanese brutality, especially the Chinese who were the worst hit.116
116 During the second Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945), the Chinese in Singapore had shown their support and sympathy for China by various acts such as raising funds and boycotting Japanese goods. For movements of labour during the Japanese Occupation period, consult Paul Kratoska ed., Asian Labour in the Wartime Japanese Empire, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2006. For the plight of the Chinese in Singapore, consult Ralph Modder, The Singapore Chinese Massacre, 18 February to 4 March 1942, Singapore: Horizon Books, 2004; Low N.I., When Singapore was Syonan-to, Singapore: Times Editions, 2004.
58 The Federation of Malaya
After the war, when the British forces and Colonial officers returned, the immigration policies in Singapore became more restrictive and only those who had relatives in the South Seas were allowed to migrate to the colony. Immigration now enters a new phase: that of centralization. Migrants now began to settle permanently during the post-war boom. New national identities were formed and the new immigrants set up their families in Singapore and children born to them automatically became citizens of Singapore when Singapore became independent.
Locals began to be responsible for the administration of the Federation in preparation towards future independence. Those born locally began to contribute to the labour force and the need for large numbers of immigrants decreased. The focus now gradually shifted towards the building of new national identities and a whole series of policies were geared towards citizenship and registration.
In 1948 the British Subjects Bill was imposed. Every person who was born in
Singapore or in territories comprising former Straits Settlements would be called a British
Subject, or a Commonwealth citizen. Identity cards were re-introduced and the National
Registration Office of the colonial government began issuing paper ICs. In 1950, an
Immigration Bill was passed designed primarily to restrict the immigration of Chinese who might have communist sympathies. In 1953, arrangements were made whereby reports of births by registered midwifes to the Health Authorities were checked against birth registrations. In 1955, the Registration of Persons Ordinance was introduced and under this
Ordinance, every person of 12 years of age and over was required to obtain an identity card unless his stay in Singapore was for less than thirty days. The law also made it compulsory
59 in 1956 for the parents or guardians to register the child’s name within twelve months of the date of birth, failing which a penalty may be imposed. Clerks of the Registration
Department were sent out daily with Post Office Mobile Vans to assist the rural public on identity card matters – applications, replacements, changes of address etc.
In 1957, an agreement was made at the Singapore constitutional conference held in
London that a separate Singapore citizenship be created within the Commonwealth. This
1957 Citizenship Ordinance offered Singapore citizenship to all born in Singapore, in the
Federation and to British citizens of two years’ residence and to all those who have been residents for ten years in the colony who were prepared to swear loyalty to Singapore. With the constitution, the Singapore Citizenship was internationally recognized and a citizen of
Singapore automatically gained the status of a British subject and Commonwealth citizen.117 The development of National Registration marks an important period in the development of a young nation. The emphasis placed on National Registration also indicated Singapore’s determination to gain recognition as a new and independent nation, and wanted its citizens to be clearly recognized as citizens of their new country.
Furthermore, a strong and well-organized national registration system will also ensure tighter control over the borders from persons with dubious backgrounds. It is also an important step towards the prevention of crime and also the prevention of unauthorized persons from entering, exiting and re-entering the country, as well as for tracing missing persons. There were several important steps taken in the improvement of the registration system and records as well as the design of the passport that made it increasingly difficult in future years for unauthorized persons to enter Singapore.
117 Teo, Delia and Clement Liew, Guardians of Our Homeland, pp. 131.
60
The Development of National Registration after the Independence of Singapore
Organisation
Even before Independence, steps were taken to gradually hand over the immigration administration to the local population. In 1957, the Immigration Department was the first major department in Singapore to be completely staffed by the local people. In 1959, the
Registry of Births and Deaths became the responsibility of the Minister of Home Affairs.
Several similar organizational changes were made since the independence of Singapore to the National Registration and Immigration administrative units for them to function better.
In 1966, the National Registration Office (NRO) was set up in May in place of the former
Registry of Persons as a result of the coming into force of the National Registration Act
(1965) which introduced a more comprehensive and more effective system of National
Registration.
In 1981, the National Registration Department was set up, and the Registry of
Births and Deaths, the Registry of Societies, the Registry of Citizens, the National
Registration Office all came under the Department. In 1986, information pertaining to deaths registered on and after 1 January was also captured in the computer system. The
Department gained autonomy from the Singapore government in 1996, which meant that it would be able to make certain decisions on its own, to allow increased flexibility in manpower administration and financial matters. A website was also launched in the same year together with other Home Affairs departments, and with that, information on birth registration etc. could be easily obtained.
61 The Singapore Identity Card
An identity card (IC) is an important document to anyone. It is a form of unique identification to a person. Identity cards were first issued to the citizens of Singapore during the Emergency118 for security reasons. With the identity card, the government could keep track of the residents and stop anyone who was without an IC from entering Singapore.
The initial identity card was only a piece of blue paper containing the holder’s photograph and thumbprint. There were no unique serial numbers for different persons and a new number was issued every time a card was replaced. (This is the situation at present for many Southeast Asian countries as well as China, and in Chapter Four, I shall demonstrate how this facilitated the smuggling of illegal migrants in the region, especially in Singapore.)
It was also not a very effective type of identification document as the photograph could be easily substituted.
In 1966, German-made identity cards were issued to replace the old blue cards. The new Singapore Identity Cards were produced in two colours: pink for citizens and blue for permanent residents. They were laminated to prevent illegal modification of photos and particulars. From then on, a unique set of seven numbers and an alphabet formed the serial number to the new identity card and no two persons will have the same set of numbers.
The IC was further improved in 1991 and its size was reduced to that of a credit card. New material was also used to increase the durability of the IC. New security features were added to prevent abuse and everyone converted their ICs from 1991 to 1997.
The new IC possessed several security features: the bar-coded IC number, electronically-
118 When the Communist Party of Malaya tried to take over Malaya and Singapore in 1948, the colony went into a state of Emergency and this lasted for 12 years.
62 captured and laser engraved thumbprint and photo, changeable laser image of Singapore’s lion head logo and holder’s IC number.119
The world’s first high-tech IC was thus created, but would only be possible with a stand-alone computerized system. This feature was important in preventing tampering at the source of production. The archive of thumbprints was later linked with the Automated
Fingerprint Identification System, and this was a great innovation in effective crime fighting.
The Singapore Passport
The changes in the Singapore Passport before and after Independence meant it was not only a travel document; it was also a reflection of major political changes of that period.
During colonial times, passports were only issued to British subjects and British protected persons. For aliens who could not obtain national passports, Certificates of Identity were issued.
When Singapore gained internal self-government in 1955 and became a state, this change was reflected in the passport, as the passports were now issued by the British High
Commission in Singapore instead of the Immigration Department. During the Federation of Malaysia period, Singapore citizens were issued Malaysian passports with the prefix “E”.
When Singapore became independent, passports ceased to be issued until 17 August 1965.
New Singapore Provisional Passports were hurriedly evolved to provide Singapore citizens with travel documents which would not only be attractive but also reflect the dignity of the newly independent Singapore. The Provisional Passport issued was then only valid for two
119 Teo, Delia and Clement Liew, Guardians of Our Homeland., pp. 164 to 165.
63 years. It was not until 1966 that a new permanent passport was introduced. During this period, Malaysia passports issued to Singapore citizens before the separation continued to be valid until their expiry date.
In 1967, when the immigration control at the Causeway to West Malaysia was launched, a new Singapore Restricted Passport valid only for travel between Singapore and
West Malaysia was issued. This passport was for the convenience of those who commuted between Malaysia and Singapore frequently. It ceased to be valid after 1 January 1999 when demand was no longer great.
At the same time, Singapore International Passports were also issued, and modifications were constantly made to the passport to improve its security. In 1971, soft cover international passports with perforated control numbers on the covers were introduced for easier handling. This passport was later redesigned according to
International Aviation Guidelines to include features such as watermarked paper, security laminate with state crest, fugitive ink and scrambled indicia.
These passports were to last for 10 years and came in 64 or 96 pages. They were issued in 1986 and were only replaced in 1999 when the new Automated Passport
Processing System was introduced. Several improvements made to the passport include using a tamper-proof photo image in place of the conventional photograph, printing of particulars onto a special security film bonded onto the passport, using images of the
Singapore skyline and the national flower as security feature, using intricate lines to make it harder to forge or tamper with. A second photo image, which comprised of a 30 percent reproduction of the first, was also scanned in, and intaglio printing was used, where the lettering was slightly raised above the page, as well as optical ink that take on various
64 colours when viewed from different angles were used.120 With this new red Singapore
International Passport, the blue Singapore Restricted Passport ceased to be valid as a travel document.
In April 2006, however, another new breakthrough came about when the biometric passport, an e-passport system, was implemented. The security features of the biometric passport make impersonation and forgery extremely difficult, as information stored in the smart chip embedded in the passport could not be changed. Known as the “BioPass project” that started in 2003, the Singapore government has been conducting various tests and engaging the assistance of several international airports to make sure that the new biometric passport is usable.121
The unique features of both the Singapore identity card and the passport made them extremely difficult to forge. However, Singapore is only one of two countries in the region with the luxury of such security measures (Thailand is the other Southeast Asian country using the e-passport). Most other Southeast Asian countries are not even close in the security measures of their passports. Moreover, only new passports issued after August
2006 are e-passports, thus many Singaporeans are still using the old passports which are more susceptible to forgery. Such forged documents are common methods for migrant smugglers. The advancement of passport technology is important in the discussion of the various methods used by the illegal immigrants to enter Singapore. It can also shed light on why some traditional smuggling methods are getting out-dated and being replaced by newer
120 Ibid., pp. 74-79. 121 Further information can be found in articles such as ZDNet Asia article “S’pore unveils new biometric passport”, 31 March 2006, retrieved from http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,39346963,00.htm; “The Unveiling of “BioPass”, speech by Mr Wong Kan Seng, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs, 31 March 2006, taken from Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs website: www. mha.gov.sg.
65 methods and why some smuggling methods are preferred. This will be further discussed in
Chapter Four.
The emphasis on registration after Independence does not mean a laxity in immigration policies. In fact, together with improvements made to registration methods, immigration policies, especially those involving illegal immigrants and their harbourers and employers underwent several changes throughout the decades. They were the subject of debate in Parliament on more than one occasion. Having reviewed the immigration laws of the colonial times and independent state, manifesting the motives behind the changes, as well as showing the increasing use of modern technology, the next chapter of this thesis shall go on to look at Singapore’s policies and laws in more detail, as well as the methods illegal immigrants used to enter Singapore despite the laws and advanced technology.
66 CHAPTER THREE: ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS VERSUS THE AUTHORITIES: THE TRADITIONAL AND CHANGING TRENDS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IN SINGAPORE
“‘Entry’ means-(a) in the case of person arriving by sea, disembarking in Singapore from the vessel in which he arrives; (b) in the case of a person arriving by air at an authorised airport, leaving the precincts of such airport; (c) in the case of a person entering by land and proceeding to an immigration control post…or an authorised train checkpoint…, leaving the precincts of such post or checkpoint for any purpose other than that of departing from Singapore by an approved route; and (d) in any other case, any entry into Singapore by land, sea or air…” Section 2 of the Immigration Act (Cap 133)
INTRODUCTION
The history of illegal migration is and has always been a battle between the risk- takers, i.e. the illegal migrants and migrant smugglers (commonly called “snakeheads” in
Singapore), and the governments of the receiving countries. It is, in most cases, both a battle of wits and a battle of chance. The governments of receiving countries have, with the formulation of immigration laws, set boundaries for foreigners and indicated the type of foreigners they “welcome” and put up barriers against those that they deemed “undesirable” in their countries. The risk-takers, on the other hand, have been constantly trying to outwit the authorities by using all sorts of methods to penetrate the obstacles set by them. The tighter the border control becomes and the more vigilant the law enforcers are, the more diversified the smuggling methods become. This is true not only for migrant smuggling, but for all contraband activities.
67 As technology advances, the battleground shifts from the actual “combat points”, i.e. the routes taken by the illegal immigrants or places where ambushes are laid, to the homes or offices of the migrant smugglers, or the offices of the authorities where all the planning and preparation work are completed. The outcomes of the battles are often anticipated right indoors. The eventual success of the migrant smugglers in smuggling in migrants often relies on some luck, hence, it is also a battle of chance. This, again, is not only the case for human or migrant smuggling, but also for all contraband activities, even terrorist activities, although those are beyond the scope of discussion for this thesis.
In order to continue smuggling activities, the migrant smugglers are forever looking out for new methods to challenge the boundaries. They, no doubt, have to keep up with the times and know the new policies and laws the intended receiving countries set and revise on migration and migrants. Sometimes, an unexpected contraband business opportunity under the guise of a perfectly legal activity may arise as a result of the emergence of new forms of legal businesses. For example, more open policies for Chinese to travel overseas, more educational institutions in Singapore recruiting overseas students, and new businesses in Singapore supplying overseas brides are perfectly legal business developments, but they provide opportunities for people smugglers to bring in more people before the authorities turn their heads and start paying attention to the possible loopholes122.
Hence, the methods of illegal immigration are always changing in order to keep up with the times. When old methods fail to work, especially when the authorities started to
122 These loopholes may include tourists who remained in the country after their social visit passes expired; “study-mamas” (a term used to describe mothers who come to Singapore to accompany their children who are studying here) who were involved in illegal employment; women who come to Singapore with the intention of offering sexual services on the pretext of marriage. This will be discussed in Chapter Four.
68 notice a certain method and step in to attempt to curb influx by this particular method, new methods usually emerge and throw the authorities off-guard again.
However, it does not mean that as new methods emerge, old methods disappear. In fact, some traditional methods have withstood the test of time and have been used right from the beginning of such contraband activities. Such methods are usually the most basic and direct. In the case of Singapore, these include entering illegally by swimming across the Straits from Malaysia and by trains or motor vehicles such as buses and cars across the
Causeway. Such direct methods have existed ever since borders were created. No travel documents are needed, and in places where the lands are vast and wide and where borders extend to regions beyond the central control123, the authorities can hardly hope to put a complete stop to such illegal entries. As a country tiny in size compared to the rest of the world, Singapore should have little problem in this aspect. Yet there are still holes in the supposedly impenetrable net set by the immigration authorities. This goes to show that there are circumstances which a single country alone cannot control. Singapore can neither control the political and economic circumstances of migrant-sending countries and its immediate neighbours, nor the eagerness and desire of the people who will spare no effort and grab every opportunity to go overseas in hope of a better future. Nor can Singapore alter its natural surroundings that have existed for centuries and that continue to be the breeding ground of some of the fiercest pirates in the world, most versatile for contraband activities124.
123 A PhD student friend of mine whose research topic is Civil Society in India is particularly interested in the dangerous area of Northeastern India. He once went into that part of India through the Myanmar border legally, but when he wanted to exit India from New Delhi, he was questioned by the Customs officer on where he had entered the country from. When he told the officer the place where he first arrived in India, the officer did not even know the existence of such a place, even though it is in his own country. 124 Warren, James F., “A Tale of Two Centuries”.
69 With the natural circumstances and historical networks laid out and the changes in the migration laws of Singapore before Independence discussed in Chapter Two, the foundations for the present day situation between the illegal immigrants and the Singapore
Government are set. In this Chapter and the next, the difference in the pace of development for illegal migrant-sending countries in Asia and Singapore will be highlighted as one of the determinants for the flow of migration. With this as the background, the various methods both old and new used by the migrant smugglers to sneak in illegal immigrants, and the counter-reaction of the authorities will be the focus. The co-existence and continuation of traditional ways and new methods and the ever-changing policies and preventive measures by a new independent government that is increasingly exerting more control to keep up with these methods will be analyzed.
THE BACKGROUND OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IN SINGPORE:
THE IMPACT OF INDEPENDENCE AND EARLY IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS
When Singapore gained full independence in 1965, the government amended laws, including the Immigration Ordinance, to cater for the needs of the new country. The changes to the Immigration Bill included the addition of a provision to grant power to the
Controller of Immigration “to declare the presence of a person in Singapore to be unlawful when such a person fails to comply with the conditions stipulated in the entry permit issued to him…to enable the Controller of Immigration to rescind the permission to reside permanently in Singapore granted to persons who have obtained entry permits on grounds of economic interest in the country if they fail to carry out the purposes for which their stay in Singapore has been approved”, and also to “require masters of vessels and captains of
70 aircraft to furnish, and not merely to produce, particulars of passengers on board all vessels or aircraft arriving in Singapore…These particulars are required for record and statistical purposes.” 125 These are important steps taken to reinforce the sovereignty of the new independent state. They indicate that Singaporeans are now in a position to decide who are those deemed “desirable” for the country, and if these “desirable” people do not live up to what they had promised to contribute, they can be asked to leave the country. Singapore was becoming more selective in the choice of its citizens. In debates in 1966, it was also stated by then Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Toh Chin Chye, that “If we are in earnest to contain the growth of population in Singapore, we must also be determined to prevent an uncontrollable influx of foreign immigrants….whatever way they choose to come in, we must ensure that those who come in are those who are going to bring economic benefits to
Singapore.”126 Singapore also tightened its control on those who have entered the island by keeping records of their particulars. The introduction of the Immigration (Amendment) Bill
(1966) also increased punishment for immigration offenders, and that included people who were guilty of illegal entry, harbouring and smuggling of illegal immigrants, overstaying and unlawful return.127
As early as the mid-1960s, there were debates in parliament regarding citizenship and immigration issues, producing amendments. Although the government had set clear distinctions between citizens and non-citizens, there were still many grey areas such as the many people in Singapore with social visit passes who had entered on the pretext of visiting relatives. The government wanted clear definitions of the type of people (for
125 From Immigration (Amendment) Bill, Parliamentary Debates of Republic of Singapore, 23 February 1966, pp. 31. 126 Ibid., 15 December 1966, pp. 730. 127 Teo and Clement Liew, Guardians of Our Homeland, pp. 61
71 example, family members) allowed to enter and stay in Singapore, for it is “very difficult for the Immigration Department to keep track of all those who come to
Singapore…ascertain whether they have overstayed the period allowed to them, or whether they have disappeared…”, and these people have sometimes simply disappeared upon investigation.128 This shows that the new state was already facing complicated immigration problems. The supposed immigration offenders during this period were mostly family members or self-declared family members of those already in Singapore. Those who were from Malaysia became the subject of discussion after Singapore broke off from the
Federation of Malaysia in 1965. In fact, families that were separated by Singapore’s break- off from the Federation of Malaysia constituted the greatest problem in terms of illegal immigration during this period.
Ever since the break-off in 1965, Singapore had taken steps to control the flow of people between Malaysia and Singapore. Free travel between these two countries ceased on 1 July 1966, and there was full immigration control in place at the Johor Causeway linking the two countries by 1967. However, the Singapore Government soon found that these controls were hardly enough to stop people from entering the country illegally. It is highly possible that those who had been separated from their relatives risked entry into
Singapore and “conveniently”129 stayed in the country. Their relatives, at the same time, would be most willing to harbour them. Debates in Parliament from the second half of the
1960s until the 1970s have been evolving around such topics as who should be allowed to stay and how to deter people from entering illegally. Though the people themselves might
128 From Immigration (Amendment) Bill, Parliamentary Debates of Republic of Singapore, 15 December 1966, pp. 726-734. 129 A term used by Dr Toh Chin Chye, then Singapore Deputy Prime Minister, in his response to questions posed during the Parliamentary Debates.
72 have little concept about citizenship and nationality, the Government during this period was certainly concerned with restricting the number of people entering Singapore to join their families. One reason was that the Government had wanted to control population growth.
Hence, the Government was rather strict with those who intended to come to Singapore to settle down with their families, in that only immediate family members of Singapore citizens would be allowed permanent entry, and for applications for spouses to enter permanently, they should not be separated from their wives or husbands for more than five years, otherwise it would be presumed that they were no longer interested in each other130.
As the laws became tighter, and as surrounding circumstances changed, problems escalated and there were more immigration offenders and offenders from new regions. In
1970, then Minister for Defence Mr Lim Kim San stated: “…The open nature of our coastline with easy accessibility both from the neighbouring Indonesian islands and from the south of Johor makes illegal entry into Singapore an easy task. Once in Singapore, the illegal immigrants are not only harboured by local residents and citizens but are also provided with employment opportunities in contravention of prevailing immigration and other labour laws of the Republic.”131
SINGAPORE’S LABOUR POLICIES, THE WIDENING GAP IN THE
DEVELOPING PACE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN COUNTRIES AND THE IMPACT
ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Historically, migrants to Singapore came from India and China, as stated in earlier
Chapters of this thesis. However, after World War II, a new situation emerged as one after
130 From Immigration (Amendment) Bill, Parliamentary Debates, 15 December 1966, pp. 729 131 Ibid., 27 January 1970, pp. 401.
73 another Southeast Asian countries gained their independence and differences in the pace of development of the different countries started to increase. Within decades, Singapore emerged as one of the “Four Little Dragons of Asia”132, leaving the rest of Southeast Asia far behind in economic development. The potential of the new independent Singapore was to draw more immigrants seeking a new life.
On one hand, Singapore began to allow more foreigners to work in Singapore due to a shortage of labour. Starting from 1965, work permits were issued to Malaysians to allow them to work in Singapore and the number of foreign workers in Singapore grew rapidly. By 1998, over 18 percent of the total population of Singapore was foreigners133.
The census conducted in 2000 showed that almost 18.8 percent are foreigners134. On the other hand, in the process of gaining independence, many Southeast Asian countries encountered political upheavals and instability, and this situation persisted in the early decades of independence. This led to more people from the affected countries seeking a better life in relatively more stable countries, and Singapore, with its economy getting stronger over the decades, appeared to them as undoubtedly one of the best choices in the region. This is especially true since the economic crisis in Southeast Asia in the 1990s.
However, alongside the legal, unskilled workers who hold work permits are those without proper documents for entry into Singapore, or those without proper work permits to allow
132 The “Four Little Dragons of Asia” refers to the economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. 133 Yap Mui Teng’s article, “The Singapore State’s Response to Migration” traces the development of labour migration to Singapore since 1819 and how government labour policies contribute to this development. 134 Yearbook of Statistics of Singapore 2004, Singapore Department of Statistics. Singapore is a migrant country and since the 19th century, large numbers of immigrants (majority of them Chinese) arrived in Singapore every year. Many of them eventually made Singapore their home and by 1970, 5 years after Singapore’s independence, out of the total population of 2,074,500 people in Singapore, 2,013,600 were residents (residents comprises citizens and permanent residents). Most of the foreigners in Singapore today hold work permits or employment passes, or are in Singapore on student or dependant passes.
74 them to work in Singapore. These are the illegal immigrants who are not welcomed by the
Singapore government, but are regarded as potentially dangerous, both because of their rising numbers and potential threat to both internal and external security135.
Today, illegal immigrants in Singapore come from all over Southeast Asia and
South Asia, such as Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Bangladesh. In fact, if one enters one of the Mention Courts at the Subordinate Courts of Singapore, Court 26, one will notice two full rows of interpreters almost every morning. There are local interpreters as well as foreign ones interpreting most Southeast Asian languages. Table One shows an approximation of the number of immigration offenders charged in Court for December
2003 and January 2004.
Table 1 Number of Illegal Immigrants from Various Neighbouring Countries136
Countries December 2003 January 2004 Indonesia 2 3 India 28 32 Thailand 4 6 Bangladesh 10 9 Philippines 0 4 Myanmar 2 12 Sri Lanka 7 6 People’s Republic of China 30 34
135 Speeches by Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng often touch on illegal immigration and the potential threats they pose. Examples include an interview with him, reported on 16 January 2009 in the Straits Times, the speech he gave at the Police Workforce Seminar on 9 March 1999 ( found on http://www.mha.gov.sg/news_details.aspx?nid=MjA%3D-EqSf%2FEDZWJI%3D), and the Police Workplan Seminar on 16 April 2009 (found on http://www.mha.gov.sg/news_details.aspx?nid=MTQwOA%3D%3D- 1V8uiYmB%2Bto%3D). 136 I spent most of my time in Court during these two months and gathered the above figures manually. The figures are just an approximation. They may not be reflective of the total number of figures for the whole year as they are dependent on the number of raids and the location of the raids conducted by both ICA and the Police during that particular month, for there were periods when about a hundred immigration offenders were charged everyday. The significance of table is to show the diversity in the nationalities of the immigration offenders. There are “representatives” from various Southeast Asian and South Asian countries every month.
75 The initial influx of illegal immigrants might have been Malaysians who wanted to be with their families. The government, from a very early period since Independence, had recognised this problem of illegal immigration, although in the early years, that is, the
1960s, the number of illegal immigrants caught were relatively few (see Table 2), especially compared to today’s figures (see Table 3). However, during this period
Singapore, which had just gained independence, did not have enough resources to channel to the control of migration flows. As then Defence Minister Lim stated:
“…It is a near impossible task to patrol our territorial waters all the time without
incurring heavy unnecessary expenditure on the establishment of an effective and
credible sea patrol system to prevent illegal immigration to Singapore…there is no
exit control to ensure that those who arrive for temporary visits of one kind or the
other leave the Republic within the period of the authorised visit. Owing to the
social and economic conditions prevailing in the neighbouring countries, many
such visitors will want to remain in Singapore beyond the periods of their
authorised stay if their presence remains undetected….” 137
From the above comments of a government minister, there are several important points to note. Firstly, the government already recognised that there were illegal immigrants in the country and the numbers apprehended were likely to be only the tip of an iceberg, for there could be thousands out there still undetected. Secondly, the government admitted that there were circumstances beyond its control, that is, the porous borders (even more so in the first two decades of Independence) as well as developments in other countries. Thirdly, and more importantly, the Defence Minister deemed it
137 Immigration (Amendment) Bill, Parliamentary Debates of Republic of Singapore, 27 January 1970, pp. 401-402.
76 “unnecessary” to spend heavy expenditure on the establishment of an effective sea patrol system. He suggested instead that heavier punishment be imposed on immigration offenders, including those who employed illegal immigrants, to serve as deterrent.
Today’s situation is quite different. The government today believes it is important to ensure that every inch of Singapore’s borders is guarded, not only to prevent the entry of illegal immigrants, but more importantly to safeguard Singapore from fearful terrorist attacks as well as other smuggling activities, for the key issues remain that the natural surroundings of Singapore are not very different from a few centuries ago and Singapore still has no control over the situation and problems of other countries. Besides, as later parts of this thesis will show, the law is only effective when it is enforced. If Singapore did not enforce the law, that is, did not deem it necessary to channel more resources into strengthening its borders and covering every loophole, and if Singapore was not willing and able to assign more manpower to apprehend such immigration offenders, harsher punishments would be useless. As long as Singapore’s borders remained porous, people would continue to enter illegally. Moreover, the risk-takers would continue to take such risks knowing that their chances of successfully entering the country would be relatively high and, having entered the country, their chances of remaining undetected were also high, as the government then had neither the means nor the energy to actively and directly suppress such illegal acts. All the government could do was to impose higher punishments.
However, punishment will only come into the picture AFTER these people were arrested, so many would still take the chance to enter the country and try their best to remain undetected.
77 The issue of illegal immigration to Singapore is just a small part of a bigger problem. There is also the issue of people using Singapore as a transit point to get to other countries, just as there are many who use Malaysia as a transit point to get to Singapore, which later sections of this chapter will show. Just as there are people who intended to remain in Singapore right from the start, there are also others who had initially intended to use Singapore as a transit point for them to go to other countries, but due to a twist of fate, became stranded on the island during transit, being neither able to successfully get to the country of their wish, nor return to their own country. There are yet others who came to
Singapore only to realise that things are not as good as they had thought, and both deprived of work and shelter, decided to take another risk to exit Singapore illegally. All these categories of illegal immigrants may not be easily deterred simply by harsher punishments.
As the number of immigration offenders today shows, the increasingly harsher punishments have failed to reduce illegal immigration into Singapore over the decades. Of course, the government today has much better means to channel more resources and manpower in apprehending immigration offenders and several successful clamp-downs recently show the importance of such direct actions. The later sections of this chapter will show that it is indeed more effective to control illegal immigration by controlling the borders than to impose ever harsher punishments. The following sections will focus on the various methods used by the illegal immigrants and their facilitators to enter and remain in
Singapore.
78 Table 2 Number of Immigration Offenders Apprehended during initial years of
Independence138
Year Number Apprehended 1959 130 1960 360 1961 116 1962 140 1963 204 1964 436 1965 128 1966 854 1967 2,640 1968 2,980 1969 2,593
Table 3 Number of Immigration Offenders Apprehended from 2002-2006139
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Number of Illegal Immigrants (a) 7,860 5,510 5,400 4,600 3,800 Number of Overstayers (b) 5,690 6,340 6,390 5,500 5,200 Total number of Immigration Offenders 13,550 11,850 11,790 10,100 9,000 (a+b)
138 Ibid, pp. 402. These figures were drawn from Parliamentary Reports to represent the situation for the initial years of Singapore’s independence. Singapore first obtained full internal self-government in 1959 and independence in 1965. 139 Statistics from 2002-2004 taken from Immigration & Checkpoints Authority Yearbook 2004, pp. 25. Statistics for 2005-6 taken from ICA homepage: http://www.ica.gov.sg/data/resources/docs/06Feb2007_Annualstats.pdf. These figures show the situation in recent years when tighter controls were exercised and more raids were conducted to check the growth of immigration offenders. However, they do not include those who entered legally with forged certificates, or those who made frequent trips on social visit passes to engage in illegal employment.
79 THE WORLD OF NO PASSPORTS:
THE TRADITIONAL METHODS OF ILLEGAL ENTRY AND EXIT
Illegal Immigration by Land
When the first Causeway was constructed in 1920s linking Singapore and Malaysia directly by land, travel between the two places became easier and more convenient.
Decades later, this Causeway is still convenient for the people of both Singapore and
Malaysia, and thousands of Malaysians working in Singapore would cross it every morning, and return to Malaysia after work, and many people from both countries would go across it every weekend to shop in the neighbouring countries.
The Causeway is however also convenient for another group of people, i.e. illegal immigrants. It is not only convenient for illegal immigrants in Malaysia to cross over to
Singapore, but also those from mainland Southeast Asia to travel all the way overland from their own countries to Singapore, just like backpackers. In fact, it is possible even to start the journey from China. I was told that at least one couple successfully completed their illegal journey all the way from Vietnam, without passports. They went overland through jungles and sometimes hitched hikes from cars along the way across Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia to reach Singapore, without engaging migrant smugglers. They were finally arrested in Singapore.140
Those who already had managed to enter Malaysia found it even easier to get to
Singapore. Whether they had arrangements with snakehead syndicates or just decided to venture across to the island on their own, all they needed to do was to walk across. Even those who wanted to go the other way round simply walked from Singapore to Malaysia, as
140 This is a true case told to me by a Vietnamese interpreter who interpreted for them during investigations.
80 a police investigation in 2004 discovered. The man convicted of murdering an eight-year- old foreign student from China evaded police by escaping to his own country, Malaysia.
His escape created uproar over how he managed to escape despite Singapore’s supposedly tight security at the borders, for the murder case was one of the biggest cases in Singapore.
During his trial in Singapore in July 2005, the accused revealed that he had walked across the Causeway through the bus lane and that he did not pass any police or Customs officer, thus no one stopped or questioned him.141
Although walking is one way into Singapore, many illegal immigrants arrange for migrant smugglers to help them. These illegal immigrants usually enter Singapore hiding in the boots of cars or buses and sneaked past the checkpoints142. Four such illegal immigrants died while trying to sneak into Singapore in August 1999 in the back of a Johor-registered
Lorry, and 31 others were found dehydrated and semi-conscious, for they were hidden beneath mattresses.143 This is a similar case to the major human smuggling case in Britain in 2000, except that the victims then were hidden in trains.
Entering Singapore by trains is another method used by the illegal immigrants.
However, instead of hiding in between the gaps of the train cars, these people would board the train normally, only to jump off from it at a suitable time and place to avoid the checkpoints.
Even for the traditional overland route, there are many different variations to get people across borders. What has not changed is that the journey, as it was for the coolies of
141 The NewPaper, The Straits Times, 13 July 2005 etc. The route the accused Took Leng How took was revealed during the first day of the murder case and was reported by all major newspapers in Singapore as the case was a high profile one, being one of the most sensational cases in Singapore. Took was eventually convicted and hanged. 142 I have come across many such cases in Court. 143 From “His Story: Interview with Snakehead Victim in Singapore Jail”, The NewPaper, 26 December 2004.
81 yesteryears, not only to the Straits Settlements but to all other lands of migrants, is a treacherous and most torturous one. The sea route, too, is even riskier for illegal immigrants.
Illegal Immigration by Sea
Singapore is an island and its closest neighbours, Indonesia and especially Malaysia, are only separated from it by a narrow stretch of water. In earlier times, when people could roam freely in and out of the island, they travelled by ships. This was before the days when the aeroplane was invented and became convenient and accessible enough for common folks. It was also before the construction of any link-way between peninsula Malaysia and
Singapore144.
During the Colonial period, certain immigration laws were imposed, and some became “illegal immigrants”. Even during this period, people travelled in and out of
Singapore via sea vessels. Junks from China and ships from India would unload coolies in the Straits Settlements. The journey to Singapore then was one of extreme hardship. Each junk carried many hundreds of people in cramped and dangerous conditions. Moreover, the journey from China or India to Singapore usually took months and, as the conditions on board were extremely bad, diseases spread and many did not live to reach the land of hope.
It was a great risk to take, even though those people would be legal workers. They came with nothing on them, and had nothing to hide. Many continued to take the risk, for they knew, or at least they hoped, that there would be new opportunities waiting for them in the
“Nanyang”.
144 There are currently two, at Woodlands and Tuas in Singapore, linking to the state of Johor in Malaysia.
82 For today’s illegal immigrants, the sea journeys, though much shorter in time-frame due to advancement in technology, prove to be more treacherous. Today’s sea journey does not start from China. Most illegal immigrants get to Malaysia or Indonesia first, or were originally from these countries, and proceed to Singapore by boat. These illegal immigrants come from all over Southeast Asia. As they are entering Singapore illegally, it is impossible to travel in large numbers. Because of the risk of getting caught, they have to be discreet in their movements. They were usually told to wait at a specific place in Johor
Bahru to be ferried across on a speedboat, and were then left on their own once they successfully reach Singapore. I now draw on court records and newspaper articles to illustrate the dangers faced by migrants trying to enter Singapore illegally.
Scenario 1145
Weng, a national of the People’s Republic of China, was caught loitering at a park in Singapore. As he was obviously not local and could not produce any evidence to show that he was staying legally in Singapore, he was arrested for illegal entry. During the investigations, he revealed that he had first entered Malaysia several months ago. He then approached a person in Malaysia to make arrangements for him to enter Singapore and agreed to pay a sum of about RM2,000 for the journey. Thereafter, he was told to proceed to a pre-arranged location in Johor Bahru and there, a stranger instructed him to board a speedboat. There were a few other fellow countrymen already on board. After about half an hour, the speedboat reached the shores of Singapore. Once all the illegal immigrants disembarked, the boat sped off again, leaving them to fend for their own in a land totally unknown to them.
145 This scenario was adapted from one of the Statement of Facts of those charged with Illegal Entry into Singapore. Weng is a pseudonym.
83 The few illegal immigrants like Weng were considered lucky, for at least they were not sabotaged by their migrant smugglers and reached their destination without being detected by the authorities and were caught only about six months later. Many others were not so lucky. Some were caught halfway through the journey. In April 2006, a collision that occurred off the south-western coast of Singapore between a Police Coast Guard fast boat and an Indonesian speedboat resulted in the death of one illegal immigrant and the arrests of three others. These illegal immigrants were trying to smuggle cigarettes into
Singapore.146 Others were told by the runners to jump off the boat at sea and swim on their own to shore when they were in danger of being detected by Police patrol boats. There were yet others who were promised boat journeys but in the end only given a float and told to swim across, when the boat method started to prove too risky for the migrant smugglers.
(See Scenarios 2 and 3)
Scenario 2147
Kway Sue, who was from Myanmar, had paid a snakehead RM1,200 to smuggle him to Singapore by boat. He then got in a car to be taken to the shore of Johor. However, while in the car, the snakehead told him that there was not going to be any boat or car to ferry him over and told him to swim across instead, saying that ‘it was very easy’ and many had done it before. He was also told that he could not get his money back. It did not matter whether Kway could swim or not. He just had to and he did. He reached Singapore after two hours. There were yet others who were pushed into the sea and forced to swim even when they decided to back out at the last minute, such as Hui and her husband (Scenario 3).
146 The Sunday Times, 9 April 2006. The smuggling of contraband goods involving illegal immigrants will be discussed in Chapter 6. 147 Adapted from The Straits Times article “Swimming for his life”, 26 December 2004.
84 Scenario 3148
Hui and her husband, both from China, paid an agent in China to arrange for them to come to Singapore to work. They first arrived in Malaysia and were told to meet another agent along the coast of Johor who was supposed to convey them to Singapore by way of a speedboat. However, when they came near the Singapore coastline, they were forced to jump into the sea and swim to Singapore. This was clearly against what was agreed, but they had no choice at all. They wanted to abandon the plan but were pushed into the sea by the boatman and had to swim for their lives until they were lucky enough to be rescued by the Police Coast Guards and taken to Singapore.
Kway and Hui were very fortunate to have been alive to tell their story. There is no way of finding out how many illegal immigrants have died while swimming across the
Straits of Johor. Just a few months before Kway’s case, two bodies were found in the waters near the Singapore-Johor Causeway and were ruled by the State Coroner to be probably illegal immigrants who had similarly tried to swim across to Singapore.149
There were yet others who tried to swim across from the opposite direction. These were illegal immigrants who had arrived in Singapore earlier only to realise that they could not find any work. Some then decided to take the risk to swim across to Malaysia with life jackets and plastic bottles tied to their bodies.150 Those who successfully swam across the
Straits would remember the experience for life. The swim is certainly far from being ‘easy’,
148 Adapted from a case I helped interpret in Court. This was revealed in Hui’s (not her real name) mitigation. She was nevertheless charged and convicted for illegal entry as she admitted that she did have the intention to enter Singapore to work. According to her, that was her first attempt to come to Singapore but it was her husband’s second attempt. Her husband was successful in his first attempt but was eventually caught and repatriated back to China but he decided to try again. 149 Ibid. 150 Three Myanmar nationals were caught doing this as reported by the Chinese newspaper Shin Min Daily News, 10 November 2004.
85 as the migrant smugglers had claimed, for the distance between shores is about two kilometres, the waters are extremely cold and the currents are very strong. Moreover, most of such actions were conducted during night time to avoid detection, which makes the journey more treacherous.
The great risk these people had to bear and the suffering they had to take during these journeys however did not deterred them from taking risks and some, even after they were caught and served their sentences and repatriated back to their countries, returned again by the same dangerous routes. The journeys of these “little people” are often not depicted in history, and are even less important in the eyes of the government, whose main concern is to keep them out. However, as this thesis shows, their acts are very much a continuation of a tradition of movements of people across borders, except that in the present day, theirs is of a clandestine nature due to the evolution of immigration laws.
Another point to note is that the illegal immigrants travelling by sea comprise not only the
Chinese, but also other nationalities such as Myanmar nationals, Indonesians and Indians, thus depicting Singapore as a multi-racial society and a regional transit, even in a clandestine way.
This also shows how porous the physical borders are, and all the more manifested the dangers of porous borders, for if an ordinary couple can successfully reach Singapore, how is Singapore to prevent the syndicates and worse still, the trained terrorists? There are often clashes of various groups of militants and racial disputes along the borders of mainland Southeast Asian countries. These border regions are forested. Consequently, the borders remain extremely vulnerable to such threats. The issue of porous borders is a great
86 concern of the Singapore government. However, international issues and natural circumstances are often beyond Singapore’s control. The only borders that Singapore can control are its own, and hence, the government is sparing no effort to tighten security at the borders. In recent years, the government has indeed stepped up its control of the borders in response to terrorists. Ironically, by doing so, they have not arrested many terrorists, but have discovered instead lots of contraband goods and arrested illegal immigrants as a result151.
However, simply protecting the physical borders is not enough to stop these illegal immigrants, for the traditional methods, which are dangerous and increasingly being easily detectable, are slowly abandoned by snakehead syndicates and small time migrant smugglers who have found new methods of smuggling people into Singapore, and more comfortable ones too. This also manifests the continuing battle between the authorities who are constantly trying to protect the porous borders and those involved in clandestine activities who keep challenging the security measures imposed. In the next Chapter, these new methods, together with the operations of migrant smugglers and the roles of
Singaporeans as smugglers shall be discussed to show the involvement of the different players both within and outside the country in an activity that has always been and will continue to be seen as a threat to the authorities seeking to maintain control and guard their borders.
151 “Hunt for Mas Selamat netted 66 illegal immigrants”, The Straits Times, 16 March 2008, and “Singapore’s JI Leader Mas Selamat arrested in Malaysia”, on ChannelnewsAsia, 8 May 2009, from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/427691/1/.html.
87 CHAPTER FOUR:
COMPLEXITIES OF OLD ROUTES, NEW TRENDS AND THE ROLE
OF CHINESE SINGAPOREANS
INTRODUCTION
The most direct ways to smuggle people into Singapore were discussed in the last chapter. The direct land and sea route offers cheap opportunities for those who cannot afford to have forged documents made. However, as the scenarios show, such journeys involve great dangers, and behind every risk-taker who has successfully landed on
Singapore shores, many unfortunate individuals would have lost their lives along the way.
Hence, many new risk-takers choose safer alternatives, safer not exactly in the sense that it would be harder for them to get caught, but that at least they would not have to risk getting drowned or suffocated and would usually reach their destination “in one piece”.
These increasingly popular methods and their new variations, as well as the organisations behind them are to be the focus of this chapter, which seeks to show how, on the foundations of old routes, new and more creative ways have surfaced, and how, with the help of migrant smugglers and their runners, these illegal immigrants are able to stay in
Singapore and even use Singapore as a transit point to another destination. In fact,
Singapore is a useful country for international migration syndicates, for it is not only a transit point but its documents such as passports, after some modifications, could also be used by such syndicates for their clients to get into European countries and the United
States. Hence, though against the wishes of the government authorities, Singapore has been
88 playing an active role, though not always a direct one, in the lucrative business of people smuggling.
At the same time, as the methods of illegal immigration unveil, it becomes apparent that Singapore is often not the only transit point in the journey, but often one of many transit points along the way from the sending country to the receiving country. Also, very often, more than one syndicate is involved in the smuggling of one batch of illegal migrants from Asia to Europe or America. The operations of such major migrant smuggling activities are a reflection of globalisation in its own way, and just as the methods are adapting to the times and ever-changing, they are also part of a very old system of globalisation that has been in existence for centuries in the Southeast Asian region.
The second part of this chapter goes on to discuss the involvement of Singaporeans, especially those of Chinese ethnicity, in facilitating such smuggling activities, and shows how, with the migration history of Singapore as background, these Singaporeans have made use of their ethnicity, as well as the success of Singapore as tools to their endeavours.
Throughout this chapter I shall draw on my professional experience as a Court Interpreter for my evidence and examples.
PASSPORTS AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BY AIR
As air travel becomes more accessible and less costly, illegal immigration by air becomes a viable option. Moreover, with air travel, illegal immigrants can travel directly from their home countries to their destinations without much trouble and danger. Such migrant smuggling activities by air operate differently from the methods discussed in the previous chapter, for unlike the more direct and traditional methods, these newer alternatives usually
89 involve the necessity of some form of travel documents, that is, the passport and a valid visa. However, even for smuggling by air, the methods have not remained the same throughout the years, and the trend changes every few years when the migrant smugglers and the illegal immigrants find that a particular method does not work well anymore.
Generally, for the air method, the simplest way would be to get a forged passport and visa and take the risk to clear the customs with such forged documents. Such cases, if caught, are dealt with by the Singapore Police Force. At the customs checkpoint, people suspected by the ICA officers of possessing forged passports will be handed over to the police who will verify if the passports are indeed forged and press charges against the immigration offenders accordingly.
According to Trustcopy152 passports can be easily forged and copied by forgers by redrawing the document, which produces high quality forgeries, or scanning and reprinting the document, which produces forgeries of lower grade. However, the problem of forged passports is often not straightforward. Sometimes, a passport can be forged simply by replacing the photographs of the holder. Such cases usually involve bigger or more organised syndicates. Cases involving passports with substituted photographs are not uncommon in Singapore and those charged with such offences may not all be illegal immigrants (Scenarios 4-6), some are Singaporeans involved in international forgery or smuggling syndicates (these cases will be discussed later in this chapter under Snakeheads).
152 Trustcopy was a spin-off high-tech company from Kent Ridge Digital Labs (now part of A*Star), the premier national research institution of Singapore.
90 Scenario 4153
Saywoo son of Subramaniam Thevan was convicted of fraudulently using as genuine forged Malaysian restricted passports. He had substituted the photographs of the actual holders with his own and used these forged passports to enter Singapore on various occasions.
Scenario 5154
Gua Xiazhu, a female Chinese national, was engaged in a conspiracy of forgery whereby a Singapore passport was forged by an accomplice by substituting a photograph of
Gua on the passport for her to be used to cheat the immigration authorities. She had intended to use the passport to travel to Japan.
Scenario 6155
Nguyen, a Vietnamese, paid for and obtained a British passport from an agent in
Vietnam and intended to proceed to the United Kingdom with Singapore as a transit point.
He was told to make up a story saying that all his relatives are Vietnamese-British.
However, while waiting to transit, officers in Singapore discovered that there was something wrong with the passport and checked with the British Embassy. The Embassy confirmed that the passport was forged. In Nguyen’s opinion, he did not commit any offence, as he felt that he could go anywhere with the passport as long as he paid for it.
153 Adapted from the case of Saywoo s/o Subramaniam Thevan v PP, Sentencing Practice of the Subordinate Courts, Singapore : Butterworths Asia, 2000, pp. 413. 154 Adapted from the case of PP v Gua Xiazhu, ibid., pp. 409. 155 This scenario is based on a true case I heard from my interview with Vietnamese interpreters. Nguyen is a pseudonym.
91 The above three cases are only among the many cases of this type that I have come across as a court interpreter. Just as immigration offenders, whose final destination is
Singapore, had used forged foreign passports to enter Singapore, there are also others who use forged Singapore passports to get to other countries. As Singapore passport holders can more easily gain access to many countries of the world than passport holders from other
Asian countries such as Indonesia, they are handy tools for migrant smugglers. These illegal immigrants will use Singapore as their transit point, or rather, one of their transit points. The migrant smuggling route from Asia to Europe is more complicated and usually involves at least two or three transit points. Of course, even the route to Singapore as destination sometimes involves a few transit points, as the scenarios have shown in the previous chapter. Scenario 6 shows one of the latest and supposedly highly successful methods to enter the United States or Europe from Vietnam.
Scenario 7156
Chu, a Vietnamese, came to Singapore by flight from Ho Chi Minh City using his own
Vietnamese passport, and was received by an unknown agent in Singapore. The unknown agent then transferred him to Indonesia, where he remained for one night. The following day, he checked in at the Singapore checkpoint again, this time using an Indonesian passport. He had disposed of the Vietnamese passport in Indonesia. He was finally caught red-handed at the very last minute while waiting for his connecting flight to New York in the transit area in Singapore Changi airport, for the officers had asked him something in
Bahasa Indonesia and he could not understand them.
156 Based on a true case told to me by the Vietnamese interpreters. Chu is a pseudonym.
92 Chu was, according to his own confession to the interpreters, one of many who used this method to try to get to Europe or the United States. He said his friend managed to get to the United States successfully by the same method. Singapore is a convenient transit point for Vietnamese, as they need a visa to go to the United States straight from Vietnam, and it is usually very difficult for them to get one. They can, however, come to Singapore without the need of a visa. Chu was given a sentence of one month imprisonment and four strokes of the cane.
According to the Vietnamese interpreters, the Vietnam-Singapore-Indonesia-
Singapore-Overseas method used by Chu was indeed a ‘safer’ one for illegal immigrants.
When asked how these illegal migrants thought of stratagems for illegal migration such as this, the interpreters unanimously said that the Vietnamese syndicates all learnt from the
Chinese, who had more experience in migrant smuggling operations. Research done by
Chin Ko-lin on Chinese smuggling activities to the US also shows examples of Singapore’s involvement in the illegal immigration operations and also as one of the transit points, usually for the air route. She quoted one example of a man from Changle in Fujian province who travelled from Fuzhou to Guangdong to Kunming to Nang Chang to Mulien, was arrested at Ray Mao but escaped and crossed the border to Burma and then to Thailand, and from Thailand to Singapore and Malaysia, and finally flew to Los Angeles with a group of illegal Chinese posing as Taiwanese tourists. Her research also showed that illegal migrants who flew from Fuzhou airport were most likely to go to Singapore first and that Singapore passports (both genuine and forged ones) were among the most frequently used passports for illegal migrant smuggling activities. She also documents that some Singaporeans were
93 also involved as migrant smugglers, accompanying the illegal migrants throughout their journey.157
Clearly not all of these illegal migrants reach their destinations. Some of them are stranded while in transit, especially when they have sold their travel documents to their agents (this will be discussed later). A Chinese illegal immigrant I came into contact with in Court told me that she had intended to go to the United States and was only in transit in
Singapore. She said that her agent promised her to get her to the United States but had abandoned her in Singapore, leaving her wandering on the streets.
The immigration checkpoints are usually very busy and it is very difficult for the immigration officers to pay attention to all passengers and all details about them. Moreover, not all forged documents are easy to detect, some are so real that they can only be detected by the most vigilant immigration officers. Hence immigration officers in countries receiving many illegal immigrants are very careful when it comes to passports and refer to their superior if they suspect any foul play158.
Many illegal immigrants are like Nguyen, feeling that they have not done wrong for they had paid for the passports. Even if they knew that they were doing something illegal, they pretended that they did not know. Quite a number of the Chinese illegal immigrants with forged passports I came into contact with in Court initially claimed that they were cheated by agents and did not know they were holding forged passports. In many of these
157 Chin Ko-lin, Smuggled Chinese, pp. 49-61. 158 My sister and I were once trapped at the Japanese Passport Clearance area for almost two hours in 2002 as the watermark on my sister’s new Singapore passport was not clear. The Japanese authorities had to call Singapore and check with the Singapore authorities to make sure that the passport was a genuine one before letting us go. Also, in June 2005, when I was flying to Sydney for my thesis review, I was stopped while trying to check-in my luggage as the airport authorities could not detect any records of my student visa. It took 45 minutes of email correspondence with the Australian authorities before I was allowed to get on the flight.
94 cases, the agents had arranged for them to fly to Singapore with their own genuine People’s
Republic of China passports. However, when they reached the Singapore airport, the agents took their passports from them and gave them photo-substituted Singapore passports in return. Some were caught with such passports and charged in Court. They maintained that they had no idea that their passports were forged ones. However, when Prosecutors questioned them as to the way they were given the passports and argued that they should have known the passports did not belong to them, these immigration offenders usually admitted they knew or had reason to believe that the passports were forged ones but had chosen to feign ignorance. There is, in fact, a very practical reason for the migrant smugglers to take these people’s passports at the airport, for passports with a valid entry visa for Singapore can be sold to people who have overstayed their visa and are seeking a way to return to their home country. Such overstayers will be discussed in the next section.
(IL)LEGAL IMMIGRANTS?:
NEW (OR OLD?) METHODS AND THE NEW “ILLEGAL” IMMIGRANTS
The Overstayers
The term “overstayers” generally refers to migrants who arrive in a country legally and fail to abide by the conditions of their admission. As direct illegal entry becomes harder to evade detection, due to tighter border controls in recent years, the number of illegal immigrants who were charged with illegal entry has dropped159. The number of overstayers, however, continued to be on the rise until 2006 when it also began to fall. 160 The
159 Refer to Table 3 in Chapter Three of this thesis. 160The rise and fall of the number of immigration offenders could explain on the one hand the ability of the authorities in keeping the situation under control, but on the other, it could also show the evolution of
95 overstayers have been in existence since the very first immigration laws were formulated.
During the initial period of Singapore’s independence, there were probably a large number of overstayers already in Singapore. Initially, many of these overstayers may have been from Malaysia and have relatives in Singapore who were willing to harbour them and find them employment. The new independent government then had both its hands too full with many other issues to effectively deal with such immigration offenders, though the government knew very well about the existence of such overstayers and that there could be many thousands of them hiding all over Singapore, as stated in the previous Chapter.
As Singapore’s labour laws changed over the last twenty years and as Singapore began to welcome more unskilled foreign labour, many from Southeast Asia, South Asia and China took the opportunity to come to find work. Some of these workers stayed and worked legally in Singapore for a period of time until their contracts with their respective companies ended or were terminated by their employers, or when the companies they were working for closed down, and they were repatriated back to their own countries with the help of the immigration authorities. Others found ways of avoiding repatriation by running away from their employers, for example, when they found out beforehand that they would be repatriated, in order to stay on illegally in Singapore. Some of these overstayers continued to live in Singapore for years before they were finally caught during raids or found to be “suspicious-looking” while walking on the streets and brought to the police
methods and the modus operandi of illegal immigration operations. As the later part of this chapter will show, the trend of illegal immigration is now geared towards the entering Singapore on the pretext of social visits or faked marriages, and thus there would be no need for them to risk entering Singapore illegally or even overstaying in Singapore. Although it would not be possible to know which was the more important factor depicting the fall in numbers, I am inclined to think that it is the latter, given the proliferation of illegal prostitution by social pass holders which would be discussed in the next chapter of this thesis.
96 stations for verification and investigations and thus found out that they had overstayed. (See
Scenario 8)
Scenario 8161
Chen, a PRC national, was charged for remaining in Singapore without a reasonable cause for a period of 2 years and 1 day and was given a sentence of three months imprisonment and six strokes of the cane on 28 January 2004. Investigations revealed that Chen came to
Singapore in 2000 and was granted a work permit to work for a construction company in
Singapore until January 2002. He was also granted a Visit Pass to remain in Singapore for the duration of the work permit. On 26 January 2002, his work permit and Visit Pass were cancelled, but he remained in Singapore until his arrest on 27 January 2004 for overstaying in Singapore.
Chen was only one of the many overstayers who had been caught during their stay and had to serve a sentence for the overstaying offence. There would have been possibly thousands of such overstayers who, after continuing for some time in Singapore, found that they could not find jobs, or had earned enough from working here, but whichever the case, had decided to leave Singapore. They had a few ways of doing so. One of the most direct ways would be to swim across to Malaysia, as discussed in the previous chapter, or they could buy a forged passport. Better still, they could buy genuine passports with valid visas from the migrant smugglers, and these were the very passports taken from those who had just arrived in Singapore as stated in the previous section. In this way, they would have entered Singapore legally, and if they managed to stay undetected during the period of
161 This scenario was based on one of the Charges and Statement of Facts I have seen. (PP v Chen Guojian)
97 overstay, would have been deemed to have left Singapore legally as well, just with a different identity.
However, to apply for a work permit in Singapore is not an easy task for these foreigners. The application procedure is often tedious and success is not guaranteed162. For the risk takers, there is another easier way of coming to Singapore to work, especially within the last few years when Social Visit Passes are more easily granted as an incentive for tourists from neighbouring countries to visit Singapore. These immigration offenders could come in as tourists and overstay for as long as they like if they are not caught.
THE “DISAPPEARING TOURISTS”:
ON “SOCIAL VISITS”? OR OVERSTAYERS IN DISGUISE?
Those who come to Singapore on “Social Visits” are supposedly in Singapore for sightseeing. As a tourist hotspot, there are thousands of tourists coming to Singapore every year as their sole destination. Many more come as a stopover trip on transit to somewhere else, as Singapore is also a very popular transit spot for those travelling from places like
Australia to Europe. Along with the ordinary tourists, however, there is also another category of “tourists”, that is, those who come to Singapore on the pretext of sightseeing but with a real intention of overstaying and working illegally in Singapore. In recent years, such cases are getting common as the operations are simpler. These immigration offenders can stay as long as they like in Singapore if they lie low and remain undetected. When they are ready to go back to their own countries or somewhere else, they can buy another person’s passport to get out of Singapore, as described above. Moreover, they do not have
162 For work permit application requirements, check the Ministry of Manpower website: http://www.mom.gov.sg.
98 to buy forged passports to come to Singapore; all tourists from ASEAN countries can travel to Singapore without a visa and may be granted a 14-day Social Visit Pass on the spot163.
Those from China have to apply for Visas, but will usually be given 14-day Social Visit
Passes as well. Hence, posing as tourists makes the illegal journey much less treacherous than the direct methods; moreover, they do not have to worry about being caught at the checkpoints for holding forged passports. However, once these supposed “tourists” stay beyond the period of their Social Visit Passes and do not apply to the Immigration authorities for extension, they are deemed to be overstaying in Singapore and are charged for overstaying once they are caught. (see Scenario 9)
Scenario 9164
Xue, a female PRC national, was arrested on the street by immigration officers when she could not produce any evidence to show that she was staying legally in Singapore. It was later found out that she had arrived in Singapore by flight and was granted a 14-day Social
Visit Pass. Upon the expiry of her visit pass, she neither left Singapore nor applied for further extension of stay. She had thus remained in Singapore unlawfully. With the information she gave voluntarily to the immigration officers, a search was made at the Data
Processing Centre (DPC) and there were indeed records of her legal entry. When she was caught, she had stayed in Singapore over a period of 1 year, 1 month and 28 days.
A PRC national, Jin Wen, was charged as an overstayer and served sentence before he was repatriated back to China. Back in Fujian Province, he wrote of his journey to
163 Social Visit Passes may not be granted to those who have a criminal record or who entered Singapore very frequently within short periods of time and the authorities suspected foulplay. 164 This scenario was based on one of the Charges and Statement of Facts I have seen. (PP v Xue Meiying)
99 Singapore and his life in Singapore as an overstayer. He too, came to Singapore by flight to look for work on the pretext of sightseeing, but found that Singapore was not exactly the
“Heaven” he had imagined and finally surrendered himself six months after his arrival.165
Such cases of “disappearing tourists” are not uncommon in recent years. Sometimes many disappear without any trace. Some travel agencies whose clients from China went missing were even blacklisted by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority.166 Moreover, such cases are not unique to Singapore. Newspaper reports from Malaysia, Taiwan and
Japan also indicate similar cases whereby tour groups have disappeared without any trace.167
Besides those who came in as tourists and overstayed, there is yet another group who came to Singapore and left when their Social Visit Passes expired, only to come in again a few days later. These are usually illegal workers in vice trades, who are, for example, working as prostitutes in Singapore. Posing as tourists is just one of their many facades.
THE “TOURISTS”, “THE BRIDES” AND “THE PATIENTS”: VICE WORKERS
IN DISGUISE?
All the methods used by the illegal immigrants I discussed in the previous chapter and the above sections have certain disadvantages, a common one being that if they are
165 Jin Wen, Snakes: Journal of An Illegal Immigrant, Lingzi Media Pte Ltd, 2002. 166 “中国旅客频失踪，6 旅社上黑名单” (6 travel agencies blacklisted for frequent disappearance of China visitors), Lianhe Wanbao, 28 Jun 2004. 167 Some of these articles include “50,000 China visitors gone missing: KL paper”, The Straits Times, 22 Nov 2005, “17 名中國旅客抵台後集體失蹤” (17 Tourists from China went missing as a group upon arrival in Taiwan), BBC Chinese.com, 20 Jul 2004, “Chinese Visa Applications suddenly much tougher”, Asahi Shinbun, 27 Aug 2005.
100 caught on the street, even if they are not doing anything illegal, they may still be checked by the authorities and their illegal status will eventually be revealed upon investigations.
Some “tourists”, however, are able to avoid that when walking on the streets, for even if they are stopped by immigration officers asking to check their status, they have a valid Social Visit Pass, so they can avoid being arrested for illegal entry or overstaying in
Singapore. These “illegal immigrants” have jobs in Singapore and agents who make arrangements for them to go in and out of Singapore on a regular basis. However, if they are from Vietnam or China, for example, it would not be practical to have them fly every two weeks to Singapore. Hence, these smart immigrants make use of a loophole in the immigration system.
Technically speaking, no visas are needed for people from ASEAN countries to enter Singapore and they are granted Social Visit Passes upon their entry into Singapore.
This means that as long as they are out of Singapore and come into Singapore again, they would be granted another 14 days of stay. Hence, these people go across to Malaysia and stay for one or two days before re-entering Singapore again, and in this way, they are able to go in and out of Singapore and yet always have a legal status in Singapore168. I was told by the Vietnamese interpreters that some Vietnamese immigrants used this method to continue to work in Singapore. In the past, whenever the two weeks’ period was up, these immigrants would just go across the Causeway to Johor Bahru and return on the same day, and they would be able to get Visa extensions. However, the authorities soon discovered that many people seemed to be using this method to enter Singapore freely, so in recent
168 This method is commonly known as the “U-turn” to those involved. Singaporeans involved, such as taxi- drivers who would drive these people in and out of Singapore are usually paid about SGD$100 for each passenger who successfully renewed his or her visa.
101 years it is not as easy. Now such visa applicants have to stay at Johor Bahru for at least one or two days before they can get another two weeks’ extension169.
In November 2005, a large-scale operation to bring in women from Batam in
Indonesia to Geylang, the red-light district in Singapore, for the sex trade was broken.
According to news reports, the three most common ruses used by pimps to sneak Batam women into Singapore to work as prostitutes are: Use of fake marriage documents so that the pimp and the woman pass themselves off as a married couple to avoid suspicion; use of fake doctor’s referral letters that claim the woman needed to visit Singapore for medical treatment, including surgery; and representation of women as tourists. These “tourists” produce at least SGD$500 as proof that they are entering Singapore for shopping trips or to visit relatives.170
READY GENUINE PASSPORTS ON SALE?
When caught for illegal entry or overstaying or possessing forged documents, the immigration offenders rarely have their original travel documents with them, whether they actually brought any with them or not. Many actually did have their original passports with them when they entered Singapore, but upon entering Singapore, they sold their passports to agents, or had their passports taken away by their agents for reasons unknown, as they had claimed, or simply “lost” their passports while travelling in Singapore. This has great significance not only in the operations of illegal migrant smuggling as shown briefly in some of the previous examples, but also for the registration problems of most Southeast
Asian and South Asian countries as well as China, as shown in Chapter Two.
169 I got this information from the Vietnamese interpreters. 170 From “Busted: new scams to sneak in women”, in The Straits Times, 25 November 2005.
102 As previous examples and scenarios have shown, most of the genuine passports of the illegal immigrants switched hands upon their arrival in Singapore. Of course, there might be some who genuinely do not know why their agents take their passports from them, but many actually do know, and if they do not sell theirs to the agents, they can easily find someone needing a passport to leave Singapore legally. Such acts prey on the inherent deficiency of the human eye: the inability to differentiate people of different ethnic groups.
As the Vietnamese interpreters said to me in interviews, “you know the Vietnamese will look almost alike if they combed their hair the same way…, so very difficult to differentiate.”171
The Vietnamese interpreters also told me that this was a common practice especially among British-Vietnamese who sell their passports to agents who in turn sell these passports to those banned from entering Singapore. Those who are in Singapore for just two weeks often, at the end of their two weeks’ duration, buy or even steal passports from new arrivals so that they get to stay for another two weeks. Those who sold theirs then report the “loss” of their passports to their embassy, alongside those who have genuinely lost their passports or had theirs stolen by others. The embassy then issues new passports with a different set of numbers from the previous ones, though under the same name. The sale of the passports brings easy money to these immigration offenders. A Vietnamese passport, for example, is usually sold for about SGD$4,000. Moreover, without a proper registration system, the Vietnamese government cannot be efficient in keeping track of the use and abuse of these passports. Of course, the people using such passports to enter and exit Singapore run another risk if they are caught: that of making a false declaration on the
171 The interpreters made this comment during my interview with them.
103 embarkation/disembarkation card they have to fill in at the immigration checkpoints.
Questions asked on the cards include “Have you ever used a passport under a different name to enter Singapore?”, and “Have you ever been prohibited from entering Singapore”.
Immigration offenders who use these passports often enough perjure themselves in at least one of their answers.
However, Singapore has introduced a fingerprint system to track down previous immigration offenders so as to bar them from re-entering Singapore illegally.
Consequently, the number of such cases will probably drop now that having a passport is no longer enough to guarantee entry into Singapore.
THE SNAKEHEADS: SINGAPOREANS AS MIGRANT SMUGGLERS
As the earlier chapters have shown, the historical trading networks have been in place in the region for centuries, and all sorts of trades have flourished in the surrounding waters of Singapore, including the contraband ones. The previous section has shown that as technology advances, the methods for smuggling people in and out of Singapore, as with other countries in the world, were constantly improvised to suit modern requirements and to avoid modern techniques of detection. As the movements of people are now facilitated by air travel, the new channel quickly became a tool for the people smugglers to exploit, and the authorities found themselves having another new and more complicated area to deal with.
To facilitate people smuggling by air, forging passports is one of the most common methods used by people smugglers. Two of the most common ways to forge passports are either to substitute photos of the original passport holder with that of the illegal migrant, or
104 for the illegal migrant to directly impersonate the owner of the passport. It is therefore the easiest and most logical to look for illegal migrants passport holders of the same ethnic group and who speak a common language. To further facilitate the smuggling activities of especially China nationals, passports of a country well-recognised and well trusted by many countries in the world are certainly greatly sought after by the smugglers. Being a country with over 75 percent of its population of Chinese ethnicity, and whose passports can gain easy access to many countries in the world, Singapore fits perfectly into the bill of a desirable platform for people smuggling and hence is an ideal transit point for people smuggling activities. Singaporeans, especially those of Chinese ethnicity, may certainly be solicited by people smuggling syndicates, and those who are keen to earn large amounts of money or who are eager to solve their financial problems may be tempted to risk breaking the law and become facilitators for people smuggling syndicates. Some Singaporeans have recognised their “assets” as ethnic Chinese and as Singaporeans and seek to reap economic benefits using these qualities intentionally to mastermind migrant smuggling activities.
Others were barely conscious of their status in these aspects but were only keen on earning quick money.
The term “snakehead” refers to a Chinese gang which smuggles people. However, in Singapore, the term “snakehead” is broadly used to describe all human smugglers,
Chinese or not, although snakehead operations often involve Chinese Singaporeans at different levels. From my research materials of court documents and newspaper reports, this section sets out to discuss the operations of these snakeheads so as to show the various roles Singaporeans, especially Chinese Singaporeans, played in the clandestine activity of migrant smuggling, how they made use of their ethnicity, and how they made use of the
105 Singapore passport as a useful tool to achieve their means of smuggling people not only in and out of Singapore, but also to and from other countries.
Singaporeans involved in a syndicate which produced forged passports are not uncommonly heard of. There are several types of offences related to the forgery of passports and their supply. Some were charged with buying passports for syndicates, while others were charged with selling their own. There are yet those who were personally involved in forging passports, and in more complicated cases, they were directed by syndicates to apply for passports on behalf of their family members to be sold to these syndicates. From the forgery of passports to supplying them to foreigners, to accompanying the foreigners overseas, these Singaporeans are either involved as the head of the syndicate, or as the runners abetting the smuggling activities. Below are some examples:
Scenario 10172
Goh Jak Sek was convicted for engaging in a conspiracy to commit forgery and was sentenced to a total of 12 months’ imprisonment. He first bought several Singapore international passports from his colleagues or friends and sold these to agents who would in turn substitute the photographs in those passports for photographs of Chinese nationals, who would then use the forged passports to travel from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom and the United States.
172 Adapted from Goh Jak Sek v PP, Sentencing Practice in the Subordinate Courts, pp. 400-401.
106 Scenario 11173
Chow Leng Wong was convicted on 16 charges involving forged passports. He had not only solicited and purchased the Singapore international passports, but personally forged them. He was sentenced to a total imprisonment term of 12 years.
Scenario 12174
Ho Boon Siong was charged for engaging in a conspiracy of supplying forged passports to
China nationals so that they could use those passports as genuine and was sentenced to a total of 70 months’ imprisonment.
Scenario 13175
Koh Fong Soon was convicted for conspiring with others to forge Singapore international passports to enable China nationals to obtain boarding passes from Singapore to Japan. He had accepted deposits from the China nationals and arranged for them to take tours out of
Singapore to avoid detection. He was sentenced to 8 years’ imprisonment. The sentence was reduced to 6 years upon appeal.
Scenario 14176
Lim Yew Hor was part of a human trafficking scheme and his role was to accompany four
China nationals from China to the United States via Singapore. Ling was paid SGD$3,000 for each China national and he knew that all four would be travelling on forged Singapore international passports. He was given a deterrent sentence as a human trafficker.
173 Ibid., Chow Leng Wong v PP, pp. 404. It was not specified how Chow had forged the passports in the case summary. 174 Ibid., Ho Boon Siong v PP, pp.411. 175 Ibid., Koh Fong Soon v PP, pp. 409-410. 176 Ibid., adapted from Zheng Fei & Anor v PP, pp. 418.
107 Scenario 15177
Singaporean Mary Yoong Mei Ling, on the instructions of a human trafficker Loong, a
China national, recruited seven Singaporeans who were in China, in an elaborate human smuggling operation. Her role was to arrange boarding passes for Chinese illegal immigrants to the United States and accompany them there. Loong offered to pay her
US$1,000 for every boarding pass she could arrange and US$2,000 for every illegal migrant she accompanied to the United States. The plan was for five China nationals to be smuggled to the United States. Five of the Singaporeans would get boarding passes and thereafter pass these passes together with their passports to the China nationals who would be wearing the same clothes as they. The remaining three Singaporeans were to accompany the China nationals to the United States. Yoong and her accomplices were also asked to teach the Chinese nationals how to pass themselves off as Singaporeans if questioned by immigration officers. However, their first attempt to fly out of Hong Kong on 4 November
2003 failed as they could not provide details of their accommodation in the United States.
They tried a second time on 13 November and failed again. They were then arrested and were tried in China. Mary Yoong was convicted and sentenced to 6 and a half years’ jail and RMB10,000 yuan fine.
Scenario 16178
Teo Wai Yin was convicted for having a forged passport in possession and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. Her sentence was reduced to nine months upon appeal. Being a
177 Adapted from “Passport racket Singaporeans jailed in China”, The Straits Times, 3 Feb 2005, and “They beg families for food, clothes”, The Straits Times, 15 Mar 2005. 178 Adapted from Teo Wai Yin v PP, Sentencing Practice in the Subordinate Courts, pp. 420.
108 single parent to a 15-month-old son and 18 weeks’ pregnant, she committed the offence out of severe financial difficulties. Her role was to escort a China national to Japan and hand the forged passport to the China national to enter Japan.
One of the greatest smuggling cases cracked in late 2005 and early 2006 involved
Singaporean parents who were recruited to mislead the ICA into issuing Singapore passports to children of Chinese nationality instead of their own, by applying for the passports using their real children’s birth certificate with photographs of the Chinese children, as shown in Scenario 17.
Scenario 17
Choo Gek Cheng, a female Chinese Singaporean, was one of the masterminds in a
Singaporean smuggling syndicate with links in the United States, China and Malaysia, set up to serve China nationals working as blue-collar workers in the United States, to smuggle their children to join the parents in the United States. The role of the syndicate was to arrange Singapore passports for the Chinese children to enter the United States, as no visas were required for Singaporeans to enter the United States.179
Choo rented a one bedroom apartment and kept as many as seven Chinese children aged eight to12 in hiding while she and her accomplices got the passports ready. One of her accomplices then approached several Singaporean parents, one of them being Geow Chai
Pin, offering to pay them S$2,000 for the use of their children’s birth certificates to apply for Singapore international passports for the Chinese children in hiding. Geow had a young son who was of similar age to one of the Chinese children. After receiving S$1,000 as a
179 “Child smugglers hid kids in HDB flat”, The Straits Times, 25 Feb 2006.
109 deposit, Geow was introduced briefly to the Chinese child at the ICA and she deceived the
ICA officer into believing that the child was her Singaporean son. She submitted the
Singapore birth certificate of her son with the recently taken photographs of the Chinese child to the ICA officer and successfully obtained a Singapore international passport for the
Chinese child.180
Having obtained Singapore passports through the above method, Choo then checked in with the Chinese child at the Singapore Changi Airport for a flight to the United States.
The child used a Singaporean passport substituted with his/her photograph, but bearing the name of a Singaporean child. Thereafter, the Chinese child was taken by an accomplice to another terminal and, using the child’s own Chinese passport this time, checked into a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In this way, the immigration records would show the
Chinese child leaving Singapore, but not the Singaporean child. In the departure area, the child was then handed over to Choo, who would travel with the child to the United
States.181
All the above scenarios show Chinese Singaporeans’ involvement in various facets of the people smuggling business. However, that does not mean that only Chinese
Singaporeans are involved in people smuggling and not Singaporeans of other ethnic groups. It also does not mean that only Chinese illegal migrants were smuggled in and out of Singapore, as examples in the previous section and chapter have shown. The involvement of Chinese Singaporeans is only emphasised to manifest how, just by being of
Chinese ethnicity and Singapore nationality is enough to facilitate the smuggling of China
180 Adapted from the Statement of Facts of Geow Chai Pin v PP. 181 “Child smugglers hid kids in HDB flat”, The Straits Times, 25 Feb 2006.
110 illegal migrants. One thing to note is that, unlike Chinese Singaporeans of past generations, especially those born before Singapore’s Independence, who rendered help to their China counterparts with the notion of helping their fellow countrymen in China, Singaporeans today no longer see themselves more as Chinese, but rather, as Singaporeans. The help they are rendering to the Chinese illegal migrants, therefore, is more motivated by economic benefits than the notions that they were descended from the same ancestors as Chinese. In fact, as the next chapter is to show, as Singaporeans developed a stronger national identity in line with the independent government’s policies, they began to view China Chinese as total strangers, and saw no necessity to exercise civilities as they would have just a few decades ago. The Chinese Singaporeans therefore made use of their ethnicity when they deemed it to be useful, establishing ties with fellow ethnic Chinese overseas, as those
Chinese Singaporeans who went venturing into the Chinese markets, but would also be quick to disregard this when there were no benefits to be reaped.
Having shown how Singapore acts as a transit point for the illegal immigrants, how
Singaporeans are involved in migrant smuggling activities and the usefulness of Singapore passports in illegal migrant operations, I will focus in the next chapter on the people who facilitate the stay of the illegal immigrants in Singapore: the procurers, the harbourers and the employers. Through the discussion of these facilitators, the life of the illegal immigrant in Singapore will also be unveiled, together with the Singapore Government’s response in recent years, as well as the views of Singaporeans on illegal immigrants and on foreign workers in general.
111 CHAPTER FIVE: WHEN HEAVEN BECOMES HELL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IN SINGAPORE: LIVING CONDITIONS, SNAKEHEADS, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
INTRODUCTION
For the past two centuries, Singapore, in the hearts of many of the immigrants here, was like Heaven. In order to make their way to this “heaven”, these immigrants had taken great risks and endured unimaginable hardships, as shown by the last few chapters, only to have their hopes dashed when they actually set foot on this island. Indians and the Chinese during the colonial period braved treacherous and long sea journeys, but had to work very hard to earn a living and many did not have more than a cubicle space for their place to stay182. But they did at least have something to rely on. They came legally and had a proper job. They did not have to be afraid that the police would go after them. They might be exploited, but still harboured hopes that if they worked hard enough, they might one day earn a fortune and could return to their hometown.
The new foreign labourers, too, harbour such hopes. They, too, go to great lengths to come to Singapore, not only from India and China, but also from all over Southeast
Asia183. However, they similarly find that Singapore is far from the “heaven” they had imagined it to be, that gold does not drop from the sky in this place184, and worse still, similar to the situation in their hometown, they cannot find a job and sometimes not even a
182 Works on the social conditions and life of the early immigrants include Carl Trocki, Opium and Empire; Charles Burton Buckley, An Anecdotal History of old times in Singapore, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1984; James Warren, Rickshaw Coolie. 183 Table 1 of Chapter Three of this thesis shows the various countries these immigrants came from. 184 Some of the illiterate Indian and Bangladeshi illegal immigrants were told by the snakeheads that gold drops from the sky in Singapore and they actually believed that. Singapore was glorified by the snakeheads in order to lure these people to come. I got this information from one of the Bangladeshi interpreters.
112 proper place to stay. To make matters worse, these people are considered illegal by the authorities if they have not come to Singapore through proper channels. Even when they walk on the streets, they are in constant fear that officials would approach them and ask for some form of identification to justify their stay in Singapore. Some sold themselves to the agents, some of whom were snakeheads and find themselves enslaved by these agents.
Others were left to fend for themselves after they were brought to Singapore by the snakeheads. Whichever the case, their hardships did not end with their arrival in Singapore; the worst was yet to come.
The first section of this chapter will be on the life of illegal immigrants in Singapore.
This includes discussion of their living conditions, Singaporeans’ impression of them, as well as their plight when they are caught. The second section will again be dedicated to the masterminds behind the operations – the snakeheads, but this time in their roles as facilitators for employers and harbourers. Without them, many of these illegal immigrants would not be in Singapore in the first place. Through them, these illegal immigrants are able to start their new lives in Singapore. Through the discussion of their operations, a link from the past to the present will be established. The involvement of facilitators from various different nations and the role of the Chinese in almost all aspects of the business, show how the Chinese, whether mainland or overseas Chinese, still remain in control of the migrant smuggling market even in the present day. These two sections will also reveal the continuing hardship of the immigrants and the inhumanity of the snakeheads. The scale of the operations will also be discussed and comparisons will be drawn from history to show that although the technology, and methods of illegal migration syndicates have changed,
113 and although the lives of the people in Singapore may have improved, there are still people left out and for whom living conditions have changed little over the centuries.
LIFE IN SINGAPORE FOR THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT
Many historical studies document the hardships endured by Chinese and Indian immigrants in Singapore at the turn of the 20th century. Some of the Chinese immigrants were even sold to work in Singapore as “piglets” by human smugglers and many led a life of hardship, never being able to return to their own countries. James Warren for example, in
Rickshaw Coolie, described the rickshaw coolie business as “a trade with low wages, hazardous work conditions, poor unionization and uncommon death.”185 Indeed, even if we look solely at the living conditions of coolies in general during colonial times, the coolie workers were certainly having a hard life. But the living conditions were not all they had to face. Abuse by employers was not uncommon. Working hours were long and wages were low. Today, a century later, if one looks at the living conditions of workers in independent
Singapore, including conditions experienced by legal foreign workers, surprisingly little has actually changed, despite proper laws and rulings imposed by the government against the abuse of foreign workers.
Abuse of and Discrimination against Foreign Workers
In recent years, there have been a number of reports and newspaper articles on poor living conditions for unskilled construction workers as well as maid abuse cases.
Cockroaches and bed bugs infest crowded sleeping spaces, there are no proper eating places, and forty workers have to share one toilet according to foreign workers interviewed in April
185 James Warren, Rickshaw Coolie, pp. viii.
114 2005 about their dormitories.186 If one sits on the upper deck of a double-decker bus travelling along Serangoon Road near Little India, one certainly notices the rows of shop- houses with workers’ dormitories on the second level that, even from outside, look rather cramped and dirty. There are of course other places with workers’ dormitories and many of them with similar conditions. An operator of such dormitories even told the reporters that it is normal practice to have everyone squeezed together. Of course, not all workers’ dormitories in Singapore are that bad, but the point is even in modern Singapore there are legal workers who are leading a deprived life. One can just imagine the life that an illegal worker would be leading.
Even the legally-employed maids who live in their employers’ homes may not be necessarily leading a better life than the construction workers who live in cramped places.
There have been reports of maids confined to the kitchen all day long and not allowed to return to their sleeping areas until bedtime. For the past few years, there have been a number of maid abuse cases reported every year (refer to Table 4). Forms of abuse include burning the maid’s arm with an iron, and hitting the maid with objects such as chopping boards and bottles. A news report in November 2005 revealed that a maid had kept a diary of the abuses she had endured when she was threatened with death by her employer if she told others about the abuse.187 Although the numbers of reported instances of abuse are declining, there are yet many cases unreported. Physical abuses are usually easier to detect, but not mental ones, such as confining maids to a place for long periods of time or prolonged words of scolding and cursing. Such cases of mental harassment usually remain undiscovered until too late. There may still be many employers who treat their maids as if
186 “Hell Holes”, The Straits Times, 23 April 2005. 187 “Maid Kept Diary on Months of Hell”, The Straits Times, 24 Nov 2005.
115 they are slaves who had been sold to the family. The Singapore press recently reported the case of an employer asking her maid to prostitute herself and serve clients in the employer’s home, with the employer living on the earnings of the maid, giving her as little as just SGD$10 for each client she served.188 Again, if legal maids easily fall victim to abuses, it is likely that illegal immigrants suffer even more.
Table 4 Number of Substantiated Maid Abused Cases189
Number of Substantiated Maid Abuse Cases 1997 157 1998 89 1999 82 2000 87 2001 41 2002 43 2003 70 2004 59 2005 (Jan to Sep) 32
The above examples show that even legal workers in Singapore may not necessarily lead a reasonably good life. However, even if their physical conditions are adequate, they often suffer extreme stress. Legal, unskilled workers especially often live with the fear that, rightly or wrongly, they will be accused of breaking the law, that they will lose all their earnings, and be repatriated and never allowed to return.
I encountered a Chinese worker with such a fear in 2005 when my wallet was stolen.
He told me his family name is Zhang. Mr Zhang had been ransacking one of the rubbish
188 “Fined $15,000 for pimping her maid”, The Straits Times, 22 Nov 2005. 189 Extracted from “Maid Abuse Cases Declining”, The Straits Times, 25 Nov 2005.
116 bins for useful items when he chanced upon my stolen wallet, dumped probably by the thief after taking the cash. Mr Zhang managed to contact me from my particulars in the wallet and we arranged to meet at one of the Mass Rapid Transit (subway) stations for him to return the wallet to me. When we met, he told me he was willing to return my wallet, but he did not have my identity card and some of my cards with my photos and identification number on them with him, and so he could not return them to me as yet. I was puzzled and asked him why. He then told me he was warned by his colleagues and security guard at his worksite not to bring everything with him, for there had been previous cases whereby foreign workers had been arrested when they were about to return lost or stolen wallets to their owners, and in one of the cases, the owner even brought the Police to the meeting place and the worker who found the wallet was arrested on the spot, for holding somebody else’s identity card. He told me he was afraid he would be arrested for no reason, and I had to assure him that I had no such intention. He then told me he left my identity card with the security guard at his worksite and I managed to get my cards back eventually from the security guard. I empathise with him in this aspect. The fear is very real. In Court, I have seen quite a number of cases where the accused persons were charged with Criminal
Misappropriation of Property or Fraudulent Possession and the punishments can be quite harsh. When I related this incident to my colleagues, they all realised Mr Zhang’s dilemma and commented that foreign workers nowadays were smart enough to avoid unnecessary trouble. Although Mr Zhang had no intention of appropriating my wallet, he might be in for a lot of unnecessary trouble if I thought he had the intention, especially when he is a foreign worker, and Singaporeans, or be it citizens of some countries (such as Japan), are less likely
117 to trust foreigners 190 . In fact, when I told my husband, my mother, and one of my colleagues that I’m meeting Mr Zhang, they immediately told me not to go alone, for “you never know what these Chinese workers have in mind, it’s better to be safe than sorry”. I wonder if the situation would have been the same if the person who found my wallet had been a Singaporean, but I really doubt so. For such thoughts against foreigners, especially unskilled foreign workers, are apparently not uncommon.
Discrimination against foreign workers by Singaporeans is a subject of newspaper discussion. For instance, in May 2005, an Indian Singaporean wrote to the Straits Times complaining that he was being discriminated against because he looked like a Bangladeshi.
He stated that the police would stop him to see his work permit and passport, and when he sought medical treatment, the medical staffs were initially ruder to him but their attitude changed after they saw his identity card. He was discriminated against even when shopping and queuing up for food. He thus felt that the foreign workers must have felt hurt like he did and urged Singaporeans not to discriminate against foreigners.191 A recent decision by the Singapore government to turn a former school building into a hostel for foreign workers created uproar among the residents staying in the area. Some residents even signed a petition against the decision stating various reasons including security issues as they do not
190 Take the Japanese for example. Many feel that foreigners in their country are responsible for the increasing crime rate in Japan when in fact it is not really true. In his policy speech in 2003, Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara raised the issue of the increasing number of crimes involving foreign nationals, saying that “criminals from overseas have targeted Japan as a defenceless nation with lucrative opportunities”. (Taken from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government website: http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/GOVERNOR/SPEECH/2003/0304/2.htm) [Date accessed: 04/16/2004]. Japan’s attitude towards illegal immigrants was widely reported in the region. Some news reports include “ Japan Web site irks illegal aliens”, Taipei Times, Friday, May 7 2004, “Fixing the freedom to move”, The Japan Times, 12 May 2006, “Japan - Illegal Immigrants” (ABC News Broadcast Transcript, Second story, Episode 16, Series 9, 19 Oct 1999, retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/stories/s237025.htm. 191 Abdul Shariff Aboo Kassim, “Stop discriminating against foreign workers”, The Straits Times, 24 May 2005.
118 feel safe with foreign workers living in their backyard and impact on property prices as the presence of foreign workers in the estate could bring down the value of their property. The issue of discrimination and Singaporeans’ attitude towards foreign workers again came into the spotlight as voices of protest from the residents and sympathisers of the foreign workers both voiced out in the local press.192
Foreign workers, legal and illegal, tend to face some form of discrimination in their daily activities in Singapore, and even the legal ones may sometimes find that help is limited. Self-help groups and activists who advocate for the rights of foreign workers often find themselves having to work with many restrictions with relatively low rates of success.193
Even though the majority of people in Singapore are Chinese, Chinese foreign workers are also victims of discrimination by Chinese Singaporeans. Although there are some people who do their best to help these Chinese as they still feel that a Chinese should help another Chinese, there are others who feel that these workers, especially the illegal ones, are in Singapore to “dig gold” and would go to extremes for the sake of money, and so they look down on them.194 While performing my duty as an interpreter, I once came across a Magistrate’s Complaint case whereby a lady from China working in Singapore came to Court to lodge a complaint against a taxi driver who was extremely rude to her,
192 There have been numerous articles on major newspapers regarding this issue especially in the first two weeks of September 2008. Despite the protests, the government decided to go ahead with the project. 193 Lenore Lyons, “Transient Workers Count Too?: The Intersection of Citizenship and Gender in Singapore’s Civil Society”, Sojourn, Vol. 20, No. 2 (2005), pp. 208-48. 194 Besides writing from my personal experience and the views of the people around me, there was also a Chinese language article “Should We Help Chinese workers in Trouble” in Lianhe Zaobao (28 Oct 2004) that discussed the different attitudes Singaporean Chinese have towards Chinese foreign workers. In fact, more and more Chinese Singaporeans, especially the younger ones who no longer identify themselves with China, tend to discriminate against the Chinese foreign workers. Of course, there are still many Singaporeans who empathise with the fate of these workers.
119 saying remarks like “you PRC nationals should all go back to China” and even threatening to drive her to a deserted place and rape her, leaving her much shaken and feeling totally insulted when she alighted from the taxi. However, even without actual discrimination, the situation in Singapore is much worse for the illegal immigrant. Most people would not only not offer them a job but shun them, especially in recent years, to avoid getting into trouble with the law for harbouring or employing them195.
Living and Working Conditions of the Illegal Immigrant
In his autobiography published in 2002, a Chinese illegal immigrant wrote of his days of ordeal when he was in Singapore. He had come to Singapore on the pretence of being a tourist but had intended to overstay and look for a job. However, after six months of struggle, he finally surrendered himself to the authorities and was charged and sentenced to jail before being repatriated to China. He wrote of his whole journey, how his agents initially arranged lodgings and forged documents for him and how he had to pretend to be
Singaporean. He was not only cheated by his agent who took most of his savings from him, but eventually lost contact with him. He was also not able to find any job for “being too un-
Singaporean” and his pretence was easily seen through by the locals. Then he chanced upon a Singaporean woman who helped him get a job at a construction site. He was initially promised a wage of SGD$45 a day but was again cheated by his employer and only received SGD$30 per day for his 12 days of work there before he was driven out. He managed to find a few short-term jobs later, but had to face not only discrimination from
Singaporeans who called him China “zai” (Chap, meant to be degrading), and almost even
195 I came across quite a number of illegal immigrants in Court who spoke of the difficulties in finding jobs in their mitigation pleas.
120 had to prostitute himself by serving a homosexual. After much thought, he finally decided to surrender himself.196
Jin is still considered fortunate. Before he surrendered himself, he had proper places to stay and managed to find some jobs and was not totally defaulted on his pay. There are many others who live in make-shift huts in the forested areas or even drains and cemeteries in Singapore. Some live in canvas tents supported by wooden sticks spread out over different camps in the dense forest, with beds made from rectangular plastic table tops that are covered by canvas and supported by tree branches.197 Others live in make-shift shacks with kitchen outhouses. 198 Some who worked illegally at cemeteries felt that their makeshift camps were too warm (due to Singapore’s weather) and ended up sleeping by tombstones at the cemeteries.199 Many others worked hard for their employers but ended up getting nothing when their employers defaulted on their pay, knowing that illegal workers would not dare to complain to the authorities.
However, there are yet others who have suffered a worse fate: that of being dumped like rubbish after death. Being illegal immigrants, these people must remain hidden if they want to avoid arrest. If they find work, and their employers know of their illegal status before hiring them, both sides have to keep silent about the terms of employment. Many illegal immigrants do dangerous work at construction sites and, as their status is illegal, they are not covered by insurance or have any employment benefits. In other words, should anything happen to them at work, nobody could do anything for them. If they got injured or even died at work, their employers would not dare to send them for treatment or call the
196 Jin Wen, Snakes. 197 “Suspected hideout found deep in jungle”, The NewPaper, 27 Jul 2004. 198 “Routine patrol uncovers jungle hideout”, The NewPaper, 17 Apr 2005. 199 “Living among the dead”, The NewPaper,16 May 2004.
121 police in fear of being charged for hiring illegal workers. Their colleagues at work may also be illegal immigrants and they would also not dare to do anything. Even the other fellow workers who were working legally at the site would not want to invite unnecessary trouble by alerting the authorities, probably for fear of losing their rice bowl. Injured illegal immigrants might end up being dumped at secluded places and left to die. The press has reported several cases in 2005 of illegal immigrants being dumped at carparks or drains, some of whom were already dead, others seriously injured.200 Again, referring to Warren’s study Rickshaw Coolie, it can be argued that illegal immigrants suffer conditions as bad or worse than coolies in the early years of the twentieth century. They are just as helpless as, sometimes even more helpless than, the legal coolies of the past.
Male illegal immigrants who manage to get employment mostly work as manual labour at construction sites or shipyards, or as food stall assistants at neighbourhood coffeeshops. Illegal female immigrants try to work as food stall assistants or waitresses or do minor duties at food stalls, coffee shops and other retail shops in Singapore. Finding legal jobs is unlikely, however, so they further break the law by impersonating another woman, using someone else’s identification documents, such as identity cards, passports, work permits etc.201 Many women thus end up doing illegal work, that is, work that violates the law of Singapore, such as distributing pirated video compact discs, operating illegal gambling dens, or even working as runners for snakeheads and drug traffickers. These illegal immigrants, if caught, face multiple charges. The sentences for illegal entry or overstaying are the lightest compared to the sentences for their other crimes.
200 “Was illegal worker dumped at carpark?”, The NewPaper, 14 May 2005. 201 There are many cases of such impersonation and many had been charged in Court, though the actual number is unknown.
122
Prostitution202
Some female illegal immigrants are forced to work as prostitutes. However, as long as they are able to earn money, these female illegal immigrants have no choice, for many of them are heavily in debt back at home from making a trip to Singapore203. Some had come in search of ordinary jobs but discovered that they could not find jobs without work permits.
Even those on social visit passes could not find proper employment as the pass does not permit paid employment. Most of these women eventually end up prostituting themselves.
In his autobiography, Jin wrote about a woman from China known as Ah Fang who came to
Singapore in the hope of finding work on the pretext of a social visit. She had despised prostitutes initially but became one eventually when her pass was about to expire and she could not yet find a job. There are yet others who knew before leaving China that their snakeheads had made arrangements for them to serve clients in massage parlours or illegal dens. Raids in the red light districts in Singapore often result in arrests of over a hundred female illegal immigrants from various migrant sending countries in the region, especially
Chinese, Vietnamese and Filipinos. There are at least 2,000 sex workers in Singapore’s traditional red light districts every night, including those on social visit passes.204
202 Although prostitution is legal in Singapore, it is tightly controlled and is confined to 6 designated red light areas (DRLAs), such as Geylang, Flanders Square, Keong Saik Road and Desker Road. Legal prostitutes are subject to stringent health checks and have to carry a yellow card with them to prove that they are registered and have gone for their bi-weekly health checks. Soliciting is, however, illegal and anyone caught soliciting for prostitution will be liable to be charged in Court. Hence, most of the social-visit pass holders who worked as prostitutes were charged for soliciting in public for purpose of prostitution. 203 This is what I heard from some of the female illegal immigrants I encountered in Court. In their mitigation pleas, they spoke of the money they borrowed just to make the trip here to work and earn more money. They pleaded with the Court not to send them back home and that with such huge debts to pay off, they would be in deep trouble if they were to be sent back home. 204 There are often articles on such raids. A few include “28 小时大扫黄捉 205 人”(28-hour anti-vice raids with 205 arrested), Shinmin Daily News, 11 Nov 2004; “警突击如切东海岸 109 艳女被捉”边(Police raids at Joo Chiat and East Coast, 109 sexy women arrested), Shinmin Daily News, 8 Jan 2004, similar story in The
123 Even among these illegal prostitutes there are different grades. Chinese illegal prostitutes usually command higher rates and serve their clients in proper rooms in hotels or shophouses. Vietnamese females, too, command a reasonable rate for their services. The rates range from SGD$30 to SGD$500 per session. However, the Thai prostitutes have to serve their clients in filthy, smelly make-shift tents. Just as the illegal male immigrants live in the make-shift tents in jungles, these females serve their clients in filthy shacks in the jungle. Their pimps inform foreign workers at construction sites. Workers who make their way to these secluded areas in search of Thai prostitutes are charged rates as low as
SGD$20 per session. Consequently, as many as a few hundred men, both foreigners and locals, visit jungle prostitution sites on weekends. 205 Warren’s data on prostitution in colonial times a century ago suggests prostitutes had better living and working conditions than some of these female illegal immigrants controlled by the syndicates in the twenty- first century.206. I learnt from one of the Thai interpreters that when these Thai females were recruited by the syndicates, it was never explicitly specified that they were to work as prostitutes in Singapore, but it was implied in some way, so many of these Thai recruits actually knew what their job would be, but did not know about the extremely bad working conditions. Others were promised restaurant jobs but also ended up serving clients in tents; if they refused they were denied food.207
Sentences for illegal immigrants who are caught are six months’ imprisonment and twelve strokes of the cane for males or a longer jail sentence in lieu of caning for females.
Straits Times, 8 Jan 2004. There was even a special report “Are you free for Tar Pau?” by The Straits Times on Sex Tourism in Asia, 30 Jul 2005. 205 “Sex in the city’s jungle”, The NewPaper, 7 May 2004. 206 For a thorough research on the lives of prostitutes in colonial Singapore, see James Warren, Ah Ku and Karayuki-san. 207 “Refuge for Thai women tricked into vice here”, The Straits Times, 26 Nov 2005.
124 If they are caught in illegal activities when arrested, or are holding forged documents, they are sentenced to much longer terms of imprisonment. With tightening of immigration laws in independent Singapore, the lives of the illegal workers have become even tougher than in the colonial era.
Despite such conditions, there are still documented cases of people who made repeated trips, under different identities if they were convicted previously, to Singapore, all driven by the hope of a better life and better opportunities here.208 Many even landed themselves in heavy debts to make the trip. Some had their entire villages pooling funds for them to venture overseas, entrusting the villages’ hopes to them. Although there are many who failed, some succeeded in earning enough to make their way home, and they may become a source of encouragement to those who want but have yet to make the hazardous trip to Singapore.
The constants in the history of illegal migration to Singapore are: Singapore’s strong economy and opportunities; and the prospects that illegal immigrants offer to
“entrepreneurs”. These are the big players like snakeheads and their runners, as well as the small-time “businessmen”: individual employers and harbourers who are interested in getting extra earnings.
208 In the course of my work, I have come across quite a number of illegal immigrants with previous convictions, which means that they had been charged in Court for the same offence at least once before the present charge they were facing. In all these cases, they assumed a different identity and gave false declaration in the embarkation card that they have never entered Singapore under a different name.
125 BETRAYAL, EXPLOITATION AND TREACHERY:
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, AGENTS, EMPLOYERS AND HARBOURERS
For illegal immigrants to survive in Singapore, someone must be willing to offer them a place to stay and work to do, and this has to be arranged by a facilitator usually referred to as “the agent”. There are four basic groups of such employers and harbourers.
The first group is linked directly to snakeheads and human smuggling syndicates or are the snakeheads themselves. Once the illegal immigrants are brought to Singapore, the snakeheads will arrange for them to be housed in apartments of the harbourers and find them jobs usually at construction sites, shipyards or illegal gambling dens for the males and brothels or massage parlours for the females. The second group consists of businessmen who are not linked to any particular syndicates. The employers in this group hire illegal workers despite being fully aware of their illegal status. The harbourers, who themselves may be owners or tenants of a particular dwelling, put up illegal immigrants, who were sometimes introduced to these owners by their other legal tenants. These are the small time
“businessmen” who want to cut labour costs (as they can pay these illegal workers low wages) or earn more rent (as they can squeeze many people into one room since illegal migrants dare not complain and cannot move out because they have nowhere else to stay).
The third group are ordinary people who just want to rent their rooms out or to hire workers and do not care or are genuinely ignorant of the law and take in illegal immigrants without checking their status at all. The fourth group comprises honest people who had wanted to rent their places out to or employ people with legal status but were cheated either by housing or employment agents or the illegal immigrants themselves by showing them forged documents. Before November 2004, if the people from the aforesaid fourth group
126 were caught and convicted for employing or harbouring illegal immigrants, they would also received a mandatory imprisonment term of six months together with those from the other three groups, for they would be deemed to have failed to exercise due diligence to ascertain the immigration status of their employee or tenant.209 I will concentrate on the first two groups to illustrate the operations of the syndicates and those who abet them and emphasize the plight of the illegal immigrants under their control. I use as evidence sworn testimonies made in the Subordinate Courts where I was the Court-appointed interpreter.
For organised illegal immigration into Singapore, there are usually runners and facilitators working for the syndicates within Singapore and have direct control over their
“human snakes”, especially for vice trades such as prostitution, illegal gambling activities, or even drug trafficking activities. For organised prostitution activities for example, usually the agent would bring the women into Singapore (Scenario 1) or receive them from the airport, brief them on the “terms of the contract” and ferry them around for prostitution.
Sometimes, this agent would also manage or assist in the management of places of assignation, that is, he might base the prostitutes under him in a brothel or other places he had arranged, or help in the operation of places such as a brothel. He would usually receive a commission for each client that he has secured for the prostitutes and live on the earnings of these prostitutes. (Scenario 2) He is therefore both the employer and agent and may also
209 The Immigration Act was fine-tuned and harbourers of illegal immigrants were divided into three groups: those who harbour persons who they know has contravened the provisions of the Act, those who harbour persons with reckless disregard as to whether these persons have contravened the provisions of the Act, and harbourers who have negligently failed to ascertain as to whether the persons have contravened the provisions of the Act. The first two groups of harbourers shall be liable for imprisonment term of at least six months and fine, the punishment for the last group is up to S $6,000 fine or a maximum imprisonment term of 12 months. (Refer to the 2008 version of the Immigration Act of Singapore).
127 be the harbourer if the prostitutes under him are overstayers210. The girls under him would therefore be totally under his control and, just as the Thai girls mentioned in the earlier part of this chapter, he can abandon them if they do not cooperate with him. Women coming to
Singapore without a specific type of job in mind are brought to a temporary place by the agent, sometimes even in a container at a worksite for example. There, they pay the agent to help them get a job, and the agent then arranges odd jobs for them.211
Scenario 1212
As part of a syndicate that brought in prostitutes to Singapore, Lee Swee Yang was convicted for procuring a Thai prostitute into Singapore and was initially sentenced to 3 months’ imprisonment, but the sentence was reduced to a fine of SGD$4,000 after an appeal.
Scenario 2213
Tan Yong Seng had received a Filipino prostitute from the airport and brought her to a hotel. He then briefed her on the terms of her contract and also ferried her around for the purpose of prostitution. He earned a salary of between SGD$1,500 and SGD$2,000 for assisting in managing a place of assignation and would earn a commission of SGD$50 for each client he secured for the prostitute. He would also earn a commission for securing prostitutes.
210 This means that if caught, he would be charged for illegal employment, harbouring, as well as living on the earnings of prostitutes. 211 There are several such examples in Jin Wen’s Snakes. 212 Sentencing Practice in the Subordinate Courts, Lee Swee Yang v PP, pp. 542. How the offender brought the prostitute into Singapore was not revealed. 213 Ibid., PP v Tan Yong Seng, pp. 543-544.
128 Usually, each nationality has its own snakehead syndicates involved in handling illegal immigrants from their own country, that is, the Thai snakehead syndicates bring in
Thai illegal immigrants, and the Vietnamese bring in fellow Vietnamese. When illegal immigrants are brought into Singapore, people smugglers of their nationality arrange for them to work in specific places, often in businesses operated by their own countrymen.
Bangladeshi illegal immigrants for example, are mostly involved in gambling activities. In certain trades, however, all nationalities (Chinese, Southeast and South Asian) are involved, such as construction work and especially prostitution. It is very likely that many of these syndicates of different nationalities have links with one another, and in major operations, they garner resources and collaborate, and when the enterprise is successful, they share the profits.
However, the one ethnic group that is involved in all such activities is the Chinese, both Singaporeans and overseas Chinese. Chinese business networks are involved in all aspects from planning to transportation to employment and harbouring activities. The massage parlours, hotels and karaoke (KTV) lounges which allow female illegal immigrants to prostitute themselves are mostly operated by Chinese.214
Today’s practices are similar to those of the coolie-brokers or the kanganis (Indian foremen) one century ago215. Chinese coolie-brokers known as khetow, for example, loaned recruits the expenses of their passage to Singapore and kept them under absolute control and exploitation. The same can be said for the traffickers of the akus (Chinese prostitutes in colonial Singapore) who would procure girls so as to live off their immoral earnings.
214 I got to know this from the casual interviews and chats with interpreters of various countries and prosecutors who have dealt with immigration cases. 215 Carl Trocki, Rickshaw Coolie.
129 Employers of illegal immigrants nowadays, as stated above, could face at least six months’ mandatory imprisonment if caught and convicted. Yet there are many reasons why employers would want to take the risk, especially those in high risk jobs such as construction work and shipping. For every legal foreign unskilled labourer they hire, they have to pay a deposit of SGD$5,000. Moreover, they have to insure the worker for his work safety at the construction site or shipyard. They have to apply for work permits, send their labourers for medical checkups and go through other tedious procedures for them to come to Singapore216. If the workers run away, the deposit will be forfeited. It is therefore costly and rather risky to employ foreign unskilled labour. However, if employers hire illegal immigrants, they can avoid all these costs if they are not found out and arrested. There are more advantages. Illegal immigrants are paid very low wages and they do not dare to complain due to their illegal status and their fear of losing a job. Moreover, some unscrupulous employers can give them empty promises and short-change them or even refuse to pay them any wages in the end, knowing very well that these illegal immigrants would not dare to report them to the police and had no one to turn to. Even if the workers run away when the work is too tough, the employers do not lose any deposit. Hence, if they can keep the whole affair secret, they can save significant costs. If illegal immigrants die at work, their bodies are just dumped somewhere, as if they never existed. There are of course other employers who were simply negligent in making sure that the workers they employed are of legal status, as they did not check the workers’ documents at all or did not check with the authorities after looking at the documents shown to them by the workers. It is difficult
216 The full guidelines for employers of unskilled or semi-skilled foreign workers can be found on the Ministry of Manpower website: http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/communities/work_pass/work_permit/employers__responsibil ities.html.
130 for the authorities to keep track of the status of all the foreign workers in the construction line as there are many contractors and sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors working on a single project and the main contractors may not know if their sub-contractors are employing illegal workers at any point in time.
The harbourers of illegal immigrants can also earn much from the rent they get at the immigrant’s expense. They may charge a lower rent, but the living conditions may be very poor with many people in one room and sharing a single toilet. Sometimes, the harbourers may not own the building where illegal immigrants are housed. The harbourers may be tenants who sub-let the building to illegal immigrants without the owners’ knowledge. Until the laws were amended in late 2004, the owners were liable for mandatory imprisonment if illegal immigrants were found in the places they owned, unless they could prove that they had absolutely no knowledge of the harbouring acts. This claim was often difficult to prove, given the Court’s view that if they had been checking on their tenants often enough, they would have reasonable cause to believe that there were immigration offenders in their houses or offices217. So the tenants who sub-let the building to the illegal immigrants could find loopholes to escape punishment. In his autobiography,
Jin Wen gives several examples of how he and his fellow illegal immigrants were cheated of their wages and how his agents left him to fend for himself although he had paid them most of the money he brought with him. Betrayal, exploitation and treachery are common in the world of agents, employers and harbourers of illegal immigrants; and the illegal immigrant’s life in Singapore may prove just as treacherous as the journey here. The fears
217 Actual knowledge of the immigration status of the tenant and the steps the harbourers have taken to ascertain the immigration status of the tenant will be one of the factors the Court takes into consideration when sentencing.
131 illegal migrants bring with them today are probably very similar to the fears of the early immigrants to Singapore. And so is their fate. The very few illegal migrants who managed to succeed and earn a fortune would go back to China and encourage more to come. Even as China’ economy grows, more will come, as long as Singapore remains attractive enough.218
Through the documents that I have and my own experience in Court, I have shown the various different clandestine methods of immigration to Singapore and the different players involved in the whole operation, as well as the difficulties the illegal immigrants have had to put up with. All these were laid out and discussed as part of a greater historical phenomenon. Though a lot of information about illegal immigrants and illegal migration can be extracted from the sources I have used, there are however limitations, such as the lack of information on the background of the snakeheads. In the next and final chapter of this thesis, the limitations of my resources shall be discussed. I shall also emphasise, based on what I have already raised through my research, that illegal immigration is not a new phenomenon; it has been part of the migration history of Singapore, and will continue to exist in the foreseeable future, though not necessary in the same form, as this chapter and the previous few have shown. The implications illegal immigration shall have on Singapore and the greater issues it connects with shall also be brought up in the conclusion.
218 In his article “New Migrants and the Revival of Overseas Chinese Nationalism”, in Journal of Contemporary China (2005), 14(43), May, 291-316, Liu Hong explores the reasons behind the emergence of the Chinese new migrants and how the economic reforms of China may have contributed to the rapid growth of migrants in recent decades, and that includes illegal immigrants to Singapore.
132 CHAPTER SIX:
CONCLUSIONS: THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF ILLEGAL
IMMIGRATION IN SINGAPORE
There are many ways to look at the issue of illegal immigration in Singapore.
Usually, this issue is mentioned or discussed by researchers as part of Singapore’s labour policies , or as one of the threats to Singapore’s internal security by works published by the government ministries or the press on how Singapore’s security agencies function to ensure the country’s security. Those researching illegal immigration trends in the Southeast Asian region also include Singapore as one of the places of transit for such migrant smuggling activities regionally and internationally. Works on social life of workers or individual biographies will tend to emphasize the sufferings the illegal immigrants had to go through.
Whatever the perspectives adopted, the issue of illegal immigration in Singapore was almost never discussed on its own as a topic in the history of Singapore. This is noteworthy considering the fact that Singapore is a country built almost entirely by migrants. As
Singapore gears itself to receive ever more legal migrants, the plight of illegal migrants will inevitably come to light and in fact, more and more articles about the issues of these new migrants have appeared in the local newspapers219. Along with legal migrants, it is time the illegal migrants receive some attention too. This thesis, through the five chapters tracing the development of illegal immigration in Singapore, is an attempt to fill this gap, by showing that even as a standalone topic, there is much to be researched on, whether about the
219 For example, more than a hundred Bangladeshi workers were left stranded by their employer in December 2008 and were left without food and electricity. This was widely reported in the local newspapers.
133 methods of smuggling, the lives of the illegal migrants themselves, or the attitude of government and local people towards them. Hence, illegal immigration in Singapore certainly deserves to be written about as a topic on its own.
Singapore is one of the busiest transit points in the region and huge volumes of trading goods and large number of people pass through its waterways every single day.
However, one should not always look only at the supposedly positive aspects of being an important transit point, for such a successful place of transit for legal goods and people would usually be a very convenient one too for clandestine activities such as migrant smuggling. My research has shown that this is indeed true for Singapore.
Not only is Singapore an active transit point for illegal migrants in the present day, it has been so for the past few decades. Though Singapore is not the only transit point for illegal immigrants in the region, it is nevertheless an important one. Within and outside
Singapore, many big smuggling organisations as well as small-time migrant smugglings are actively thinking of new and more foolproof methods to escape the eyes of the law enforcers both in Singapore as well as other countries. The foundations of these modern day regional networks have, however, been in place for centuries, both during the times when Singapore flourished as a port or when it became a neglected island. The modus operandi and the people involved may have changed in time, but the networks and natural conditions are constants. The very maritime conditions that have allowed the development of Singapore and very networks that have transported migrants from places like China and
India two centuries ago into the country are now still facilitating the movement of people, both legal and illegal.
134 IMMIGRATION LAWS AND MIGRANT SMUGGLING NATIONS
As Felix Soh states in his work, Phoenix: the Story of the Home Team: “No country today can tolerate a laissez-faire immigration policy.” 220 Indeed, when borders were defined, border control became necessary. As countries become independent entities, and as they begin to set their own laws for the country, they also inevitably control the type of people entering their borders. Immigration laws were thus formed as Singapore developed into a nation with its own people who were early migrants; they and their descendants would increasingly see themselves as Singaporeans. At the same time, immigration laws also allowed independent Singapore to control the type of citizens and residents her government wanted in order to build the country. When Singapore separated from Malaysia in 1965 and became independent, there was friction between the two countries and both restricted their citizens from crossing over to each other’s country. It was also for security reasons as Singapore guarded against Indonesia and Communism. At the same time, there was gross unemployment in the new independent country as the market was then not big enough to create jobs for all its citizens, so there was a need to control the number of migrants.
The situation however began to change by the 1970s. In the 19th century, the British had wanted to increase the population to speed up economic growth. Because the Malay population was small (below 250,000)221, the British sought a solution in migrant labour.
Since the population of the neighbouring colony, the Netherlands Indies, was under Dutch
220 Soh, Felix, Phoenix: the Story of the Home Team, Singapore: Times Editions, 2003, pp. 145. 221 For more information on the population then, consult Carl Trocki’s Prince of Pirates, 1979; Barbara Watson and Leonard Y. Andaya’s A History of Malaysia, Basingstake, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001; Geoffrey Benjamin & Cynthia Chou eds, Tribal Communities in the Malay World: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives, 2002.
135 control, and Anglo-Dutch treaties of 1824 and 1870 had established borders between the two. China and India became sources of labour. Singaporeans in the 1970s wanted to speed up economic growth too, and again sought a solution in importing foreign workers. At first workers were sought from Malaysia, but Singapore did not want Malaysians to become
Singapore citizens, so workers from Malaysia were not allowed to marry and settle down in
Singapore in the early years of Independence. However, as many Malaysians and
Singaporeans who were from the same families were separated as a result of political reasons, many tried to enter Singapore to visit their families and they became illegal immigrants under the immigration laws.
Chapter Two has shown that even in colonial times, in order to control the number of migrants to Singapore and to curb arising vices, the Aliens Ordinance was formulated.
When Singapore became independent, the Aliens Ordinance was developed into the
Immigration Law of the Republic of Singapore. In the first five decades of Independence, these laws become more complex and more detailed, always catering to the arising needs of the government’s plans for the state. From the Aliens Ordinance in the days of colonial rule to the Immigration Laws of present day independent Singapore, the laws have undergone numerous revisions. Just as the British government had welcomed immigrants to Singapore, the present independent government, too, extends a warm welcome to those who are deemed beneficial to Singapore’s development; except that the difference was that the
British needed large numbers of unskilled labour to build the new port, while the independent Singapore wanted skilled labour to build a modern city. Those “desirable” people become legal immigrants and the not-so-desired ones who nevertheless entered the country through secret means thus become the illegal immigrants.
136 An equally important job for the government besides encouraging suitable immigrants to Singapore is that of keeping the “undesirable” ones away from Singapore if possible, or if not, at least keep their numbers under the government’s control. The government is thus often caught with the dilemma of keeping Singapore as popular and attractive to outsiders, yet trying to keep out “undesirable” people. The government knows very well that it cannot totally prevent illegal immigrants from trying to enter the country, for no matter how well the borders are guarded, those with a will to enter or exit will keep trying to find loopholes and some, if not all, may succeed in doing so. Hence, to discourage them from doing so, harsh punishments are imposed for those who were smuggled in, or overstayed, and the people who facilitated their trips, the migrant smugglers. However, this is not enough to stop them. To make sure that illegal immigrants have less chances of being able to lead a life comfortable enough to make them want to stay in Singapore, the government implemented laws to punish those who attempted to help these illegal immigrants survive in Singapore, that is, the employers and the harbourers of the illegal immigrants and overstayers. In so doing, the government aims to make life difficult for the illegal immigrants in Singapore, so that eventually those who managed to enter Singapore would find it hard to survive and leave or better still, surrender themselves and when these illegal immigrants go back to their own countries, they would then spread the news that life in Singapore is hard and discourage those who are about to embark on the treacherous trip.
However as Chapters Three and Four have shown, there is no clear winner in this battle between the authorities and the illegal immigrants and their smugglers. One point to note is that the illegal immigrants to Singapore came to Singapore for economic reasons222, unlike
222 Most of the illegal immigrants I came across in Court cited economic reasons for their trip to Singapore in
137 refugees who could not go back to their home countries due to religious or political beliefs, as Singapore does not accept refugees. Many of these illegal immigrants also claimed that they could not return to their home countries, not so much because they would be persecuted by law, but because they were from poor families and were heavily in debt and could not repay those debts unless they found a job in Singapore.
THE COMPLEXITIES OF METHODS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
From the sailing ship to the steamship to the trains to the airplanes, the modes of transport have seen much progress in the last few centuries. The movements of people are thus made easier day by day. As technology advances, the authorities have to keep up with them so as to control the flow of people into the country. However, as the authorities keep up with the times, the contraband smugglers are doing the same as well. Hence, the modern day illegal migration is often a battle of wits between the authorities and the migrant smugglers. To smuggle migrants into modern Singapore is no small feat, especially in the past decade where security is growing ever tighter. However, as chapter four has shown, the smuggling methods are changing very rapidly as well to meet the challenge. When one method becomes too risky for the smugglers and the illegal immigrants, another new and supposedly more effective method will be put to trial, and if indeed proven to be highly successful, it will become the trend for the next few years until the authorities discover this trend and come up with measures to curb it. The use of the court records come in very handy here as the statement of facts for each case would contain the method by which the
their mitigation plea.
138 illegal immigrants entered Singapore, and would thus show the emergence of new methods vis-a-vis the existing ones.
Whatever the methods may be, one thing that has not changed for centuries is that the journey is often treacherous. Handicapped by the technology advancement of modes of transport, people just a century ago often spent months getting from China to Singapore by sea, and many never did complete the journey due to hardships and illness along the way.
Today, illegal immigrants are still embarking on the same treacherous journey to attempt to enter their destination countries clandestinely. It would certainly be difficult to compare which is more treacherous, the journey by sea a century ago or a similar journey for an illegal immigrant today, as Chapter Four has shown. Yet these illegal migrants have persisted in their journey, just as their predecessors did a century ago, all for the sake of a better life.
THE PLIGHT OF THE UNWELCOME NEWCOMERS
Those who succeeded in their search for a better life overseas centuries ago might have settled in their new countries, like the Chinese in Singapore. Many who had ties with their family back in China would still send money back, while others sent for their families in China to settle down in Singapore. However, as these former migrants gradually settled down in Singapore and their descendents were born and have grown up in the new country, their identity underwent a change. By the time Singapore became independent, many of the descendents of former Chinese migrants saw themselves more as Singaporeans than as
139 Chinese. 223 It is even more so today. As Singapore progresses, the pride of being a
Singaporean grows and with the Singaporean identity growing stronger, a sense of superiority developed among Singaporeans. This sense of superiority can be clearly manifested in the way the foreign workers from various Southeast Asian countries that are economically not as advanced as Singapore are treated, as seen in Chapter Five. When even legal foreign workers face discrimination and exploitation, the situation is certainly worse for the illegal immigrant, who has few people to turn to for help. While there are avenues for the legal workers to seek help, there is no such avenue for those who are not even documented and whose existence in Singapore is not known by the authorities. Those who helped illegal immigrants often did it out of ignorance, or even knowingly wanted to exploit these helpless individuals. Their fates, when compared with those of the coolies and prostitutes during colonial times, have not changed much after all.
The fates of these illegal immigrants and the life they led in Singapore would, however, not be reflected in the court and government records, except for the accounts of the treacherous journeys they took to come to Singapore. Such records would at most represent the view of the government and the stand the government takes on the issue of illegal immigration. As such, this thesis taps on other primary resources such as newspaper reports and autobiographies, and more importantly, my own encounters with the illegal immigrants so as to fill in the gaps for the under-studied area of the lives of the illegal immigrants in Singapore. The combination of all these data sources thus allow this thesis to not only explore the issue of illegal immigration from the government’s point of view, but also reveal what the official statistics and records would not show: the voices of the illegal
223 Chiew Seen Kong, “From Overseas Chinese to Chinese Singaporeans”, in Leo Suryadinata ed., Ethnic Chinese as Southeast Asians, Singapore: ISEAS, 1997, pp. 211-227
140 immigrants themselves; their own views on the journeys they have embarked and difficulties they have gone through. Through that, one will not only have a better understanding of their plight, but also the lives of the locals. Jin Wen’s autobiography, for example, shows how he was taught to imitate the habits of the locals so as to avoid being caught. By reading his work, trivial habits that I did not even notice as a local suddenly became so obvious. My colleagues who have read the autobiography were also amused by how accurate the source portrayed the cultural habits of Singaporeans.
THE KEY PLAYERS: THE CHINESE
Throughout Singapore’s immigration history, whether legal or illegal, one group of people has remained important: the Chinese. The ethnic Chinese form the largest percentage of the population in Singapore. China on the other hand is still the largest migrant-sending country in the world. Most migrants to Singapore are from China, both past and present, and both legal and illegal. Hence, this thesis places strong emphasis on the roles of the Chinese and has the Chinese as the main focus. Moreover, the Chinese have been present in the region for hundreds of years, well established and actively involved in regional trade and trading networks. By the 17th century, the Chinese were already trading actively in the Southeast Asian region and working in coal, tin and gold mines, raising sugar, pepper and gambier. Their business networks became widespread, and many Chinese settled down in various Southeast Asian countries, including Singapore. Scholars such as
Mary Somers Heidhues, Jennifer Cushman and Wang Gangwu have written many works on the Chinese diaspora and Chinese networks in Southeast Asia. In the business of migrant smuggling too, the Chinese have shown themselves to be well-connected. From traders to
141 middlemen to illegal immigrants to harbourers, their roles are multi-faceted and ever- changing, as discussed in Chapters Three and Four. Although there is no evidence to show that there are more Chinese migrant smugglers then other nationals such as the Vietnamese or Indians, the Chinese certainly played a significant role in all areas of the trade, as shown in this thesis. Most of the illegal immigrants caught and tried in Singapore are also from
China. Without the Chinese as middlemen, it would have been more difficult for the migrant smugglers to operate and the illegal immigrants to enter Singapore.
The Chinese have been so well-established and so deeply involved in illegal immigration activities in the region that it would have been impossible to leave them out of the topic. However, it takes more than just the network alone to attract a person to embark on a clandestine journey overseas. Although there may be millions of poor people in China, only a small fraction of them actually leave China as illegal migrants, and majority of these are from the South. As Chapter Two shows, networks are certainly important, especially the culture of going overseas for opportunities, but the treachery of the journey described in
Chapters Three and Four shows that great initiative and courage on the part of the illegal immigrant must also be present. Thus illegal immigration is the product of poverty, courage, historical networking, as well as a migration culture that is deeply entrenched in the minds of the illegal immigrants.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AS A REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ISSUE
Illegal immigration is a relatively new concept in the long history of migration. Yet it is one that is of increasing importance in the world today. Compared with the United
States, or Great Britain, or Japan, or even Malaysia, the problem of illegal immigration is
142 but a rather minor one in Singapore in terms of numbers. Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia for example, also have incidents of numerous Chinese tourists reported missing, so much so that they have to impose stricter visa restrictions on tourists from China. The methods used by illegal immigrants to enter Singapore are also used by those trying to enter other countries. Huge migrant smuggling organizations operate internationally with many runners in various different countries and use several different countries as transit points. Singapore is merely one of the transit points along the smuggling route.
Yet as a country with one of the tightest border controls, one of the world’s best legal systems and some of the world’s strictest laws for illegal immigrants, Singapore is still one of the major transit points in the region. That is what makes the topic so important.
Moreover, the more successful and trustworthy Singapore and its passport is internationally, the more migrant smuggling organizations would want to make use of the Singaporean passports and Singaporeans themselves in their operations. Hence, illegal immigration activities in Singapore or the use of Singapore as a tool ironically also manifests the success and international reputation of Singapore.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AS PART OF THE HISTORY OF SINGAPORE
Through the discussion of illegal immigration, the rise of Singapore as a port and the development of the historical networks are discussed in a new perspective. The lives of the migrants in Singapore and how the new migrants are perceived by the locals before and after Independence can also be compared, presenting yet another new perspective on national identity and citizenship. The significance of Singapore as a transit point and the success of its national registration policies as well as its national security can also be
143 evaluated. The significance of Singapore as a country with economic value to the migrants is also demonstrated. Be it in historical, political, economic, or social aspects, illegal immigration is deeply entrenched as part of the history of Singapore. Just as James
Warren’s Rickshaw Coolie uses British coroners’ records to bring the coolie into history, this thesis has used actual court cases with newspaper articles to present micro histories or micro biographies of people not usually in the limelight. While the court records lack details on the actual living conditions of these illegal immigrants, the newspaper reports can fill in the gap. On the other hand, the amount of truth in stories published in the newspapers needs formal records to substantiate. Together, these data bring out a new section in
Singapore’s migration history and can be expanded to facilitate research into other clandestine trades, such as that of narcotics.
SINGAPORE’S DILEMMA IN THE FUTURE
The Singapore government obviously sees illegal immigration as a constant problem, though not as a single problem on its own. Illegal immigration signifies a hole in
Singapore’s borders, and that is a greater concern to the government, especially when it is working so hard to prevent terrorist and contraband smuggling activities. Illegal immigration also means a threat to internal security, for these people may commit crimes and it would be difficult for the government to track them down if it is not even aware of their existence. Without proper records of illegal immigrants, it would be very difficult for the government to keep them in control in times of emergency such as epidemic outbreaks.
The government is also worried that syndicates would make use of these illegal immigrants
144 to engage in vices or other illegal activities such as selling pirated software, contraband cigarettes and gambling activities.
However, the presence of illegal immigrants also signifies Singapore’s very success.
The fact that many illegal immigrants would want to come to Singapore means Singapore is an attractive place at least in the economic sense. If Singapore loses its economic value in the future, it would be very questionable if illegal immigrants would still want to come to
Singapore. Hence, the government will always have the dilemma of keeping the country attractive to foreigners, yet trying to keep “undesirable” foreigners out. With a casino built within Singapore in the near future, the government will inevitably have to face the question of relaxing immigration laws. The impact this will have on illegal immigration activities remains to be seen, but the issue of illegal immigration is expected to remain important in the future development of Singapore, even though it could take on different forms. As Eric Tagliacozzo has concluded, “the border is far too long to be adequately surveyed by the available resources of the state”224. In his oral reply to the question on the whereabouts of escaped terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari, Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan
Seng has also conceded that “Singapore is not a fortress. As an island, our borders are porous. There can be no 100 percent control over all illegal exit and entry even if our enhanced security operations have kept this to a minimum.”225 The Singapore frontier is still permeable on both sides for the key players of clandestine activities such as migrant smuggling. As the world becomes increasing borderless with the advent of technological
224 Secret Trades, Porous Borders, Chapter 15, pp. 373. 225 Retrieved from the Singapore Parliament website: www.parliament.gov.sg/reports/public/hansard/full/20080721/20080721_HR.html. Mas Selamat bin Kastari was allegedly the head of the Singapore branch of militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI). He is Singapore's most-wanted terror fugitive who escaped from detention on 27 February 2008. The search for him is still ongoing.
145 advancements such as the biometric passport, the future challenge for the Singapore government may increasingly shift from controlling the people who cross its borders, to examining the purpose of those crossing its borders, for even those seemingly on social visits may have a different agenda altogether. Yet the government knows that Singapore cannot shut foreigners out, for the survival of Singapore is very much dependant on the influx and outflow of people, whether as tourists, professionals, or as skilled workers, and with the flow of people into the country226, the government will have to continue to guard against those with intentions to conduct clandestine activities within its borders, as shown in Chapter Four of this thesis.
At a local level, the government will also have to ease the tensions between the long-settled local migrant populations since the colonial times, and the new migrants it sought to attract and at the same time prevent exploitation of the foreign workers within its borders. This tension is best manifested in the discrimination against the foreign workers by the local population discussed in Chapter Five of this thesis. The local people are also facing a dilemma. On one hand they need foreign workers to reduce labour costs, and do jobs that the locals generally shun, but on the other, they do not want to compromise their living environments to accommodate these foreigners. The government shall have to strike a balance on this issue. On a regional scale, Singapore will have to cooperate with its neighbours to ensure that it borders remain guarded, both from within and on the outside, so as to curb clandestine activities and more importantly, the likes of piracy and terrorism.
On a global scale, Singapore will have to maintain its global image by addressing issues
226For the Singapore Government’s view on this, see www.mha.gov.sg/news_details.aspx?nid=MTI5Ng%3d%3d-ExK7QXfl2hc%3d. In his written reply to the question on whether future immigration policies would be tightened, Mr Wong Kan Seng stated that encouraging immigration is a key strategy which Singapore must continue to pursue.
146 such as its second-tier placement in the United States State Department’s Annual
Trafficking in Persons Report 2008. This could force Singapore’s government to look into the problems of illegal immigration from a different perspective, one that places more importance on the plights of both legal and illegal immigrants in Singapore. Only when the
Singapore government has successfully tackled all these issues can it be truly in control of its borders, image and people.
FUTURE RESEARCH POSSIBILITIES
There are currently few resources on illegal immigration and future research work should emphasize more on the profiling of overstayers and those who work illegally while on social visit passes. Given the increasing proliferation of such activities, more fieldwork could be conducted in this area so as to keep the problem under control. Studies on the intricacies of the local clandestine networks and its many and multi-racial players could also be conducted to have a better understanding of historical networks in place and the workings of the current networks. This research focuses on Chinese illegal immigrants.
However, on a greater scale, and over a longer period, the research on illegal immigration in Singapore can be expanded to include illegal immigrants from other regions, as well as include other clandestine activities such immigration offenders are involved in, such as the sale of contraband cigarettes, pirated video discs, illicit drugs and operation of gambling dens. The study of such clandestine activities will show how players of different races and nationalities work together in the greater clandestine network, taking illegal gambling dens for example, the “big boss” may be a local Chinese or Indian, with Vietnamese or
Bangladeshi immigration offenders as croupiers and Chinese or Sri Lankan immigration
147 offenders as lookouts. Illegal gambling and betting activities in particular will be of greater significance as the integrated resort with casino opens in Singapore late 2009. The presence of a casino may take such clandestine activities to greater heights without proper legislation, control and enforcement.
In the area of research on immigration laws and guidelines on sentencing and enforcement, emphasis should be on balancing punishment with the cost to the government and society as a whole. Currently, illegal offenders will be repatriated to their countries after they have served their sentences. Overstayers initially on social visit passes would usually have return air tickets, and care should be taken to ensure that the term of remand and imprisonment should not exceed the deadline for their air tickets, otherwise the state will have to purchase new air tickets for these offenders. This will neither benefit the immigration offenders, who will have to serve long imprisonment terms, nor the state as there will be a direct cost to government funding and this will eventually be paid for by taxpayers’ money. However, a court case could sometimes drag for months and the illegal immigrants and overstayers might have to be given special passes to allow them to stay in
Singapore temporarily if they were required as witnesses for a trial case which might involve illegal harbouring or employment. The authorities will then have to consider how to keep these offenders on special passes in control (there have been cases of those on special passes not reporting back to the authorities after the expiry date of their passes and again overstayed) and at the same time use them as resources to the benefit of the state in terms of providing work for them and yet not to the extent that they may find it lucrative enough to make another clandestine trip back to Singapore after being repatriated (for I have encountered illegal immigrants who would rather served a longer imprisonment term or
148 given more strokes of the cane in return for an opportunity to work in Singapore). As
Singaporeans become increasingly more vocal about their views on the new migrants and illegal immigrants (especially those on social visit passes and worked illegally as prostitutes etc), more studies can be conducted on how the local population compares themselves to the immigrants (as they or their ancestors were immigrants as well) and why they have such strong negative opinion on the new immigrants, as well as how the new migrants (especially the blue collar workers and domestic helpers) can be more successfully integrated into the Singapore society. This will provide new insight to research on migration history and the issue of national identity in Singapore. On a global scale, the government should work on having a uniform definition and work to establish a common viewpoint on the issues of illegal migration and human trafficking instead of simply disputing on certain claims by international organizations and migrant-sending countries.
149 BIBLIOGRAPHY
WEBSITES
Central Intelligence Agency website: http://www.cia.gov
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Singapore Ministry of Manpower website: http://www.mom.gov.sg
Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs website: http://www.mha.gov.sg
Tokyo Metropolitan Government website: http://www.metro.tokyo.jp
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150 NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
ABC News “Japan - Illegal Immigrants”, ABC News Broadcast Transcript, Second story, Episode 16, Series 9, 19 Oct 1999. http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/stories/s237025.htm
Asahi Shinbun “Chinese Visa Applications suddenly much tougher”, 27 Aug 2005
BBC Chinese “17 名中國旅客抵台後集體失蹤” (17 Tourists from China went missing as a group upon arrival in Taiwan), 20 Jul 2004 “Singapore’s JI Leader Mas Selamat arrested in Malaysia”, ChannelnewsAsia, 8 May 2009, http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/427691/1/.html
Lianhe Wanbao (Chinese) “ 中 国 旅 客 频 失 踪 ， 6 旅 社 上 黑 名 单 ” (6 travel agencies blacklisted for frequent disappearance of China visitors), 28 Jun 2004
Lianhe Zaobao (Chinese) “Should We Help Chinese workers in Trouble”, 28 Oct 2004
Shin Min Daily News (Chinese) “警突击如切东海岸 109 艳女被捉”边(Police raids at Joo Chiat and East Coast, 109 sexy women arrested), 8 Jan 2004 “28 小时大扫黄捉 205 人”(28-hour anti-vice raids with 205 arrested), 11 Nov 2004
Taipei Times Japan Web site irks illegal aliens”, Taipei Times, 7 May 2004
The Japan Times “Fixing the freedom to move”, 12 May 2006
The NewPaper “Sex in the city’s jungle”, 7 May 2004 “Living among the dead”, 16 May 2004. “Suspected hideout found deep in jungle”, 27 Jul 2004. “His Story: Interview with Snakehead Victim in Singapore Jail”, 26 December 2004 “Routine patrol uncovers jungle hideout”, 17 Apr 2005. “Was illegal worker dumped at carpark?”, 14 May 2005
The Straits Times “Swimming for his life”, 26 December 2004 “Passport racket Singaporeans jailed in China”, 3 Feb 2005
151 “They beg families for food, clothes”, 15 Mar 2005 “Hell Holes”, 23 April 2005 Abdul Shariff Aboo Kassim, “Stop discriminating against foreign workers”, 24 May 2005 “Are you free for Tar Pau?”, 30 Jul 2005 “Fined $15,000 for pimping her maid”, 22 Nov 2005 “50,000 China visitors gone missing: KL paper”, 22 Nov 2005 “Maid Kept Diary on Months of Hell”, 24 Nov 2005 “Busted: new scams to sneak in women”, 25 November 2005 “Maid Abuse Cases Declining”, 25 Nov 2005 “Refuge for Thai women tricked into vice here”, 26 Nov 2005 “Child smugglers hid kids in HDB flat”, 25 Feb 2006 “Hunt for Mas Selamat netted 66 illegal immigrants”, 16 March 2008
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SPEECHES
Policy speech by Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara on the issue of the increasing number of crimes involving foreign nationals, 2003. http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/GOVERNOR/SPEECH/2003/0304/2.htm [Date accessed: 04/16/2004]
Speech by Mr Wong Kan Seng, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs, at the Police Workforce Seminar, 9 March 1999. http://www.mha.gov.sg/news_details.aspx?nid=MjA%3D-EqSf%2FEDZWJI%3D
“The Unveiling of “BioPass – The Singapore Biometric Passport”, speech by Mr Wong Kan Seng, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs, 31 March 2006. http://www4.mha.gov.sg/data/NewsFiles/bfc_1955_312_Unvelling%20of%20Biopass.pdf
Written Answer by Mr Wong Kan Seng, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs to Parliamentary Question, 20 October 2008. www.mha.gov.sg/news_details.aspx?nid=MTI5Ng%3d%3d-ExK7QXfl2hc%3d
Speech by Mr Wong Kan Seng, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs, at the Police Workplan Seminar, 16 April 2009. http://www.mha.gov.sg/news_details.aspx?nid=MTQwOA%3D%3D- 1V8uiYmB%2Bto%3D
160 APPENDIX
1. Pamphlets and booklets distributed by ICA to advise members of public to check the immigration status of their tenants. These pamphlets were sent to most households in Singapore and are available at Neighbourhood Police Posts. 2. Map Showing the usual route taken by illegal immigrants from Myanmar to Singapore, from newspaper article “Myanmar illegals risk life and limb to enter Singapore” (The Straits Times, 9 March 2008) 3. Newspaper article “Found Crammed Under Car Seats”, with photo showing two illegal immigrants from China hidden under car seats, attempting to enter Singapore from Malaysia. (The Straits Times, 18 April 2008) 4. Newspaper article on a raid conducted by ICA in which 102 immigration offenders were arrested. (The Straits Times, 23 November 2005) 5. Newspaper article on the same raid in Sungei Kadut. (Straits Times, 23 November 2005) 6. Newspaper article “Busted: new scams to sneak in women” showing forged passports. (The Straits Times, 25 November 2005) 7. Newspaper article “For them, this is HOME”, showing the plight of Indian workers tricked by agents into coming to Singapore with the intention to work but found out that they were here on social visit passes which did not allow them to work. (The Straits Times, 18 March 2008) 8. Newspaper article showing anti-vice raid conducted by the Police, where women from Vietnam, The Philippines, China, Thailand and Malaysia were arrested for prostitution and possible immigration offences. (Shin Min Daily News, 8 January 2004) 9. Newspaper article showing another anti-vice raid conducted by the Police in which 195 women, mostly from China, were arrested for soliciting for prostitution in public. (Shin Min Daily News, 11 January 2004)
161 10. Newspaper article “Vietnamese Prostitutes showing up in Geylang” describes a growing problem of illegal prostitution involving foreign women in Singapore on social visit passes. (The Sunday Times, 16 March 2008) 11. Newspaper article “High-Speed Chase at Sea”, about an arrest made by Police Coast Guards involving immigration offenders trying to smuggle contraband cigarettes into the country. (The Sunday Times, 9 April 2006) 12. Excerpts of newspaper article “Cigarette Peddlers”, on immigration offenders who were involved in the sale of contraband cigarettes in Singapore. (The Straits Times, 27 January 2008) 13. Excerpts of the same newspaper article “Cigarette Peddlers” showing the living conditions of immigration offenders involved in the sale of contraband cigarettes in their hideouts. (The Straits Times, 27 January 2008)
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