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Transnational Migration Brokerage in Southern China

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Transnational Migration Brokerage in Southern China > underworlds & borderlands brokering migration from southern china The income gap between rich and developing countries is still the most influential factor driving transnational migration. Although strict border controls and selection criteria have erected barriers, thousands of people who do not meet the requirements have reached their destinations, while even greater numbers would like to do so. As individual effort cannot ensure successful cross-border migration, its brokerage has become a profitable business. Li Minghuan obtain permanent residency upon arriv- for her assistance, she received rewards snakeheads’: small groups (like Sister Most difficult, and thus most expen- al based on family ties or were granted of appreciation, but soon it became an Ping’s) who legally live abroad and use sive, is acquiring official immigra- y research focuses on Tingjiang, work permits and settled down; others open secret that ‘it takes money to buy large sums of money to ‘pave the way tion status, but if the applicant agrees Ma rural region along the south- went to Hong Kong where opportuni- every step of emigration’. In Tingjiang out’ of China and into the destination to go abroad as a contract worker to east coast of China known for decades ties were plentiful and wages much in the mid-1980s, the quoted price for country. They organise and expand tran- countries such as Israel or Kuwait, the as a source area of transnational migra- higher than in the PRC. News from the helping a person emigrate to the U.S. snational migration networks, take care charge will be lower. Third, it depends tion. I have tried to trace how the cur- first emigrants was so encouraging that was US$18,000. By the end of the of documents or facilities for clients, on the applicant’s status. If the appli- rent migration trend towards high more followed. Only a small percentage 1990s, the price had skyrocketed to and/or bribe officials in China and else- cant is more or less qualified to meet income states began, developed and of potential migrants, however, met the US$60,000-70,000. where. immigration requirements, the fee expanded. Undoubtedly, the migration selection criteria. Many others needed will be lower. If the applicant needs wave has been the result of a combina- help. When Ping was just starting out, a new The middle tier is comprised of insti- to be ‘trained’ to qualify, the price will tion of many interacting factors. Here law boosted her business. The imple- tutional brokers who often work for increase accordingly. I focus on migration brokerage, a key Helping people go abroad was first mentation of the Immigration Reform officially registered companies in the node in migration networks. motivated by affection, friendship or and Control Act enabled 2.7 million migration source area. Authorised to Since the late 1990s, the Chinese sympathy, but as demand for help grew, undocumented immigrants to obtain procure labour for export and assist par- authorities have declared human smug- Emergence of brokerage it became a business. Relatives of over- permanent residency status. Among ticipants in study abroad programmes gling illegal and local police have been Tingjiang is at the mouth of the Min seas Chinese could more easily obtain the lucky ones were hundreds of Sis- and internationally contracted projects, hunting down smugglers. After the River. For as long as anyone can remem- passports and entrance visas, so some ter Ping’s first customers. When this these companies often provide train- Dover tragedy in England, where 58 ber, young local men have been sailors. became brokers themselves, arranging news spread in Ping’s home region, she ing in languages, cooking, nursing, Chinese stowaways were found dead With the coming of modern shipping, transnational marriages and adoptions. became a local heroine. basic computer skills, job interviewing, in a truck, dozens of snakeheads were many youths were employed by foreign Though this trend began with real mar- document preparation and sometimes arrested and put in prison. Many of shipping companies, and when their riages and adoptions, false arrange- In the late 1980s Ping began renting how to apply for legal status after arriv- those arrested, however, were at the bot- ships called at New York some sailors ments soon appeared. As few could and buying freighters to smuggle larg- ing illegally. Clients pay for the training tom of the hierarchy; their direct contact jumped ship to try their luck ashore. master the complicated procedures, it er groups. According to online news and upon completion receive a certifi- with the victims meant they could be This was how people from Tingjiang became a business for experts. reports, groups organised by Ping often cate which can be used to prove that the identified. Big snakeheads such as Sis- began their lives in the United States in included hundreds of people, and her holders meet the immigration require- ter Ping, however, often live abroad and the first half of the 20th century. Sister Ping: illegal migrant to largest group, according to what I heard ments of the destination state. possess several passports. Their crimi- illegal broker during my fieldwork in Tingjiang, might nal activities cannot be stopped without Emigration was interrupted after the In June 2005, a series of reports in Chi- have included 500 people. In June 1993 The bottom tier of brokers are local transnational co-operation. establishment of the People’s Repub- nese language media in the U.S. attract- the world was shocked when 300 Chi- agents who act individually. They have lic of China and condemned as coun- ed the attention of Chinese immigrants nese on board the decrepit freighter connections with the middle tier but The view from Tingjiang ter-revolutionary during the Cultural and their relatives in mainland China. Golden Venture made an emergency may also have contact with a ‘big snake- On 16 March 2006, Ping was sentenced Revolution. In the mid-1970s, when The reports concerned a woman on landing during which 11 passengers head’ through, as in Sister Ping’s exam- to 35 years in prison, meaning this 57- the Cultural Revolution was near its trial in New York, Sister Ping, accused drowned. Although Ping did not own ple, that snakehead’s fellow villagers. year old woman would spend the rest end, returned overseas Chinese and of having amassed US$40 million by the freighter, she had lent money to the Their task is to find potential custom- of her life in jail. Many Chinese immi- their families received permission to smuggling Chinese into the U.S. and of owner and had helped in the overall ers and introduce them to companies or grants in New York disagreed with the travel abroad if they could provide the involvement in the tragic death of doz- planning. After the tragedy, Ping was snakeheads. For each recruited migrant, judgement. The commonly held opin- required documents. Permission was ens of stowaways.1 one of the most wanted smugglers in the company or snakehead pays the ion was that Ping ‘is a good migration severely restricted but emigration had the United States. But she used a fake local agent a commission ranging from broker because she helped a lot of her become possible again; Tingjiang resi- Sister Ping (full name Zheng Cui passport and did not cease running her a few thousand to tens of thousands of co-villagers realise their dreams of dents with relatives in the U.S. seized Ping)2 was born in a peasant family in business until she was arrested at Hong renminbi. upward mobility.’ And, ‘Only in the eyes the opportunity. New regulations in the Tingjiang and received only a primary Kong airport in April 2000. of the American officials was what she reform era allowed returned migrants, school education. In 1974 she and her Hopeful migrants consider payment did criminal.’ The head of the Fujianese especially those who had family mem- husband emigrated to Hong Kong; in From snakehead to tail: the of the broker’s fee an investment. The association in New York said, ‘Sister bers abroad, to migrate once again. 1981 she settled in New York’s Chi- emigrant broker hierarchy actual amount depends first on antici- Ping enjoys the best reputation among natown as an undocumented worker. Unauthorised emigration brokers, pated income in the destination coun- dozens of snakeheads. She did offend As most applicants were unfamiliar with Nobody knows how she managed to get dubbed ‘snakeheads’ by the Chinese try; the brokerage fee for expediting the immigration law of America. But the necessary formalities, most applica- her green card within a year of her arriv- state media, comprise a three-tiered migration to the U.S. is always higher from a moral perspective she is not a tions were arranged by Chinese abroad. al. Ping started to help her relatives and hierarchy linking source and destina- than for Europe. Second, it depends criminal. She is innocent.’3 Some successful applicants were able to friends emigrate. At first, in exchange tion countries. At the top are the ‘big on the complexity of the services. None of the people I interviewed in 1 2 IIAS Newsletter | #42 | Autumn 2006 > underworlds & borderlands Ping’s hometown regarded her as a often difficult to see the line between criminal, though some maintained a smuggler (snakehead) and a legal Beware of the data silence on the issue. One man told me agency dealing with the affairs of Ping gave him a special discount for going abroad. Sometimes, legal agen- channelling his son to the U.S. because cies channel their clients illegally The conclusion that smuggling is carried out by powerful criminal organisations is often based they were former classmates.
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