Smuggling of humans moves east of mountains

By Tom Banse
Northwest News Network

Border Patrol agents are used to finding people hiding in vans coming across the southern border. But it's definitely out of the ordinary on our border with British Columbia. There's been a spike of human smuggling into the inland Northwest - primarily of South Koreans.

Some things just didn't seem right to the Border Patrol near Bonners Ferry, Idaho that night at the beginning of last April. Patrol agent in charge Sintha Figueroa was rousted to go out into the north Idaho cold.

"At this time of night, a rental vehicle out of California in the middle of winter. That's got all the red flags up," she says.

The motor home was driving south from Canada, but no one at the border saw it cross.

"They made the vehicle stop right around here by the school. So at this point, turn the lights on and pull it over," said Figueroa.

What happened next on the highway shoulder outside Bonners Ferry turned into one of the biggest human smuggling busts in the inland Northwest. Everything followed from simple questions of the driver, Figueroa recalls.

"Is there anybody else in the vehicle with you? Yes, got a few people in the back. Who are they? Don't know, just picked them up. Can we take a look in the back? They gave consent. So we opened it up and there were all the people."

Thirteen South Korean women and one man from young to middle aged.

"And they're all laying down so they couldn't be seen,” Figueroa says. “Nobody tried to run. They had no idea where they were. A change of clothes is all they had with them."

In court proceedings, it emerged the women were destined for Los Angeles.

Since 2002, Border Patrol agents have nabbed 172 South Koreans sneaking across the border into eastern Washington, north Idaho and adjacent Montana. Before, they rarely met any. Which raises all sorts of questions. Why Koreans? Why the inland Northwest? Why now?

"It's so interesting,” says Daniela Resh of the Refugee Women's Alliance in Seattle. “Why don't stay in Canada? Why I mean, Canada is a great nation as well. It has great economic value just as much as the United States."

Resh says part of the explanation stems from a quirk in immigration laws. South Koreans can visit Canada without a visa, and for some it becomes a handy transfer point.

"I think there's something to do -- I've noticed this with other trafficking clients that we've had - is that there's this glamorization of America where they see these images of very wealthy people. America is where it's at," she says.

Resh says some illegal immigrants go deep into debt to pay the smuggling fee. Then the smuggling rings compel their clients to work off the debt as prostitutes or servants in places like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Border Patrol spokesman Lonnie Moore in Spokane estimates about half of the intercepted Koreans are trafficking victims and the other half are trying to reunite with family already here. He says smugglers moved to inland Northwest routes about the same time there were big increases in border security in western Washington.

"There was already an established organized smuggling organization working on the western side of Washington. It seemed that organization specialized in Koreans,” says Moore. “So when it got tough going over there, of course they want to follow the path of least resistance, so they moved a little further east and tried to come here."

But what the smugglers may not have realized is that border patrols inland tripled after 9/11 as well. Moore says Border Patrol stats suggest the smuggling into the inland Northwest peaked two years ago and is tailing off now.

"We had sufficient manpower and resources to identify that happening within our area of operation and prevent them from becoming comfortable here," Moore says.

No one believes the smuggling rings have given up trying to get illegals across the northern border. But the Border Patrol and refugee advocates can't say what the preferred pathway is now.