In a later study, Zhang and Chin (2002) collaborated to investigate human smuggling rings in Los Angeles and New York. Again the AOC implication is not supported. The researchers found very few smugglers or former smugglers as having any background in criminal organizations. Only 3 out of 90 individuals have some sort of membership in criminal organizations, and none acted as an agent of their respective organizations. Again, the networks are not distinctly hierarchical but task oriented. Even when there are connections with criminal organizations, the relationship is extremely tenuous in nature. Overall, human smuggling rings are highly contingent and temporary in nature with no evidence of Triad or other criminal organization involvements.

             Currently the penalty for human smuggling has been drastically increased and other legal instruments are developed to deter human smuggling (Chin, 1999). The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 stipulates the maximum penalty for humans smuggling to increased from ten to twenty years imprisonment per illegal alien. The death penalty or life imprisonment is also sanctioned when death occurs during the smuggling. The Foreigners Alien Smuggling Act was passed in 1995 to further increase penalty (US Senate, 1995), and the RICO Statue was utilized to prosecute a smuggling network (Chin, 1999). However, these measures are yet to prove effective.

             The political and legal implications of connecting terrorism to human smuggling in the post-September 11 United States are tremendous. BICE, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department have attempted to escalate human smuggling to become an entirely different category of offenses associated with terrorism. Politically human smuggling suddenly gained urgency, and operators of such rings are deemed as associates of terrorists. The gain in political capital by the BICE and Department of Homeland Security could be enormous. Ironically, all 19 suspects involved in the September 11 attacks gained entry into the United States legally through proper channels.

             If the political arena is receptive to the human smuggling-terrorism linkage, various repressive and civil rights-violating terrorism measures potentially will be applicable to individuals charged with human smuggling. As demonstrated by the Patriot Act, civil rights and human rights are to be sacrificed for the false sense of national security. Even more alarming, most individuals involved in these smuggling rings are naturalized citizens, alien resident or illegal immigrants, they become easy targets for various civil and human rights violations.

The Politics of Asian Organized Crime

While it is undeniable that Asian criminal organizations exist and conduct a variety of criminal acts, the extent and the transnational nature of these organizations is vastly exaggerated to a mythological proportion by various law enforcement agencies. Individual acts are then erroneously escalated to become serious and threatening international organized crime with potential links to terrorism

agencies. Individual acts are then erroneously escalated to become serious and threatening international organized crime with potential links to terrorism. Yet, beyond law enforcement and the political arena there is little evidence to suggest a substantial connection between transnational crimes and AOC. The “Yellow Peril” has changed its form over time. From the opium scare and the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914, the “Yellow Peril” evolved into the heroin panic, human smuggling, and the mythically omnipotent Chinese Triads and other forms of AOC. Last year, SARS was depicted as an “Asian epidemic”; the stereotyping of Asian individuals as suspects of SARS carriers demonstrates the popular perception still maintains the Asian population as a threat to the well being of this nation. The legend of the “Yellow Peril” is alive and well.

 

References

Chin, Ko-lin, 1990, “Chinese Subculture and Criminality: Non-Traditional Crime Groups in American.” Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood

 

1996, “Chinatown Gangs: Extortion, Enterprise and Ethnicity.” New York: Oxford University Press

 

1999, “Smuggling Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States.” Philadelphia, Penn: Temple University Press

 

2001, “The Social Organization of Chinese Human Smuggling.” in Global Human Smuggling: Comparative Perspectives, Baltimore, MD., The Johns Hopkins University Press

 

Dobinson, Ian, 1993, Pinning a Tail on the Dragon: the Chinese and the International Heroin Trade, Crime and Delinquency, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 373-384

 

Keene, Linda L., 1989, Asian Organized Crime, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington D.C.