The Snakehead

by Patrick Radden Keefe

  185 It emerged that the month before: Interview with James Puleo, former State Department and INS official, June 10, 2008. Also see Burdman and Hoover, “U.S. Organizing to Repulse Smuggler Ship Invasion.”

  185 Before the Oval Office meeting: Letter from Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell to National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, June 9, 1993.

  185 “Alien smuggling is a shameful practice”: President William J. Clinton, remarks on the nomination of Doris Meissner to be INS commissioner, June 18, 1993.

  185.As he concluded: Gwen Ifill “President Chooses an Expert to Halt Smuggling of Aliens,” New York Times, June 19, 1993.

  186 Meissner had been informed: Interview with Doris Meissner, December 5, 2005.

  187 During the cold war: Tim Weiner, “Smuggled to New York: Fixing Immigration,” New York Times, June 8, 1993.

  187 Throughout the 1990s: Nina Bernstein, “In New York Immigration Court, Asylum Roulette,” New York Times, October 8, 2006.

  187 If you are a Chinese asylum-seeker: See Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Andrew Schoenholtz, and Philip Schrag, “Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication,” Stanford Law Review 60 (2008): 15, 25.

  187 One immigration judge in Los Angeles: Ibid., p. 44.

  187 Interestingly, female judges: Ibid., p. 47.

  187 “Whether an asylum applicant”: Ibid., p. 82.

  188 For no other nationality: Ibid., p. 32.

  188 With one fifth of the world’s population: Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn, China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power (New York: Times Books, 1994), p. 10.

  188 There is a famous story: This story is true, though the precise wording of Deng’s reply varies from one account to the next. See George J. Borjas, Heaven’s Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 3; Kishore Mahbubani, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East (New York: PublicAffairs, 2008), p. 314; Adlai E. Stevenson and Alton Frye, “Trading with the Communists,” Foreign Affairs (Spring 1989).

  188.Shortly after Chang’s claim: Memo from the Office of Attorney General Meese to INS Commissioner Alan Nelson, August 5, 1988.

  189.Instead, the board held: “Matter of Chang,” Interim Decision: 3107, Board of Immigration Appeals, 1989.

  189 Chang’s attorney: Interview with Jules Coven, June 16, 2008.

  190 Tiananmen unfolded: See 135 Cong. Rec. S. Doc. No. 8241-2 (July 19, 1989).

  190 The bill passed: Memorandum on Disapproval for the Emergency Chinese Relief Act of 1989, 25 Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents at 1843-54 (1989).

  190 The executive action: Executive Order No. 12,711, §4, 55 Fed. Reg. 13,897 (1990). Because of the peculiarity of the regulatory process in Washington, in order for Bush’s wishes to take effect, the attorney general needed to promulgate a “rule” that would be published in the Federal Register. But when Attorney General Richard Thornburgh issued his final rule on procedures for determining who would and would not get asylum, he somehow neglected to include anything about family-planning policies in China. No explanation was ever offered for this oversight. Some speculated that it was a drafting error. But the result was that there was no general agreement on how to proceed with asylum applications, and this period of uncertainty happened to coincide with the snakehead boom of the early 1990s and a great proliferation of asylum requests. In practice, immigration inspectors from the INS began following the guidelines established in the executive order, taking an expansive view of who could be granted asylum, while immigration judges and the Board of Immigration Appeals took a much narrower view, following Matter of Chang and insisting that simply saying “one-child policy” was not grounds for admission to America. This resulted in great uncertainty for the Chinese, as the result of their cases would vary depending on which of these bodies ended up hearing their claim. In keeping with the legal fiction that people had not entered the country, “exclusion” cases, for those detained at airports or on the beach with wet feet, were heard by the relatively sympathetic INS immigration inspectors, whereas “deportation” cases, for those who were already here, were heard by immigration judges. The frustration for the Chinese who were denied asylum before the BIA, as an opinion in one later case would put it, was that the generous interpretation of American policy had been adopted “in various forms at various times by the President of the United States, both houses of Congress, three Attorneys General and the General Counsel of the INS,” but that the BIA had been pretty consistent in its own more restrictive interpretation. Zhang v. Slattery, 55 F.3d 732 (2d Cir. 1995).

  190 In January 1993: Attorney General Order No. 1659-93, JA 1652, 1664-65.

  190 But in order for a rule: The chronology that follows is spelled out comprehensively in Zhang v. Slattery, 55 F.3d 732 (2d Cir. 1995).

  190.When Clinton assembled: White House meeting agenda prepared by Carol Rasco and Sandy Berger, June 10, 1993.

  191.On the campaign trail: See Howard French, “Haitians See Renewal of Hope with Clinton,” New York Times, November 23, 1992; Elaine Sciolino, “Clinton Says U.S. Will Continue Ban on Haitian Exodus,” New York Times, January 15, 1993. On the larger story of the processing of Haitian refugees at Guantánamo Bay, see Brandt Goldstein, Storming the Court (New York: Scribner, 2005).

  191 After his nomination: Jill Smolowe, “How It Happened,” Time, February 1, 1993.

  191 To Doris Meissner: Interview with Doris Meissner, December 5, 2005.

  191 Clinton had lost: See Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: Knopf, 2004), pp. 274–78, for a discussion of the Mariel boat lift and Fort Chaffee, and pp. 283–87 for a discussion of the election of 1980. Interestingly, Clinton maintains that he handled the crisis at Fort Chaffee well and that he enjoyed higher support among voters in western Arkansas who had observed firsthand how he managed the situation. But he notes that in postelection polls of those who had voted for him in 1976 but not in 1980, “six percent of my former supporters said it was because of the Cubans.”

  192 Even after the Golden Venture landed: Interview with Doris Meissner, December 5, 2005.

  192 The fear among many officials: Interview with Jonathan Winer, former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement, March 11, 2008.

  192 Tim Wirth, the undersecretary: Ibid.

  192 According to the State Department: Letter to Sandy Berger from Tim Wirth, February 18, 1994.

  192.State prepared a report: “Asylum Claims Relating to Family Planning in Fujian Province,” State Department Office of Asylum Affairs, Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, August 1993.

  193.Some critics disparaged him: Hood, “Riding the Snake.”

  193 To Bill Slattery: Interview with Bill Slattery, July 7, 2008.

  193 Following George Bush’s executive order: The Rees memo dates to November 7, 1991, and is titled “Asylum Requests Based upon Coercive Family Planning Policies.” It reads, in part, as follows:

  Department of Justice and INS policy with respect to aliens claiming asylum or withholding of deportation based upon coercive family planning policies does constitute persecution on account of political opinion. This policy is embodied in the Attorney Generals directives of August 5, 1988 and December 1, 1989; in the Presidents directive of November 30, 1989; in Executive Order No. 12711, Section 4, published on April 13, 1990 at 55 FR 13897; and in the interim final regulations published on January 29, 1990 at 55 FR 2203 … Pursuant to this Department and INS policy, the INS will regard an applicant for asylum (and the applicants spouse, if also an applicant) to have established presumptive eligibility for asylum on the basis of past persecution on account of political opinion if the applicant establishes that, pursuant to the implementation by the country of the applicants nationality of a family planning policy that includes forced abortion or coerced sterilization, the applicant has been forced to abort a pregnancy or to undergo involuntary sterilization or has been persecuted for failu
re to do so. The INS will regard an applicant for asylum (and the applicants spouse, if also an applicant) to have established presumptive eligibility for asylum on the basis of a well-founded fear of persecution on account of political opinion if the applicant establishes a well-founded fear that, pursuant to the implementation by the country of the applicants nationality of a family planning policy that includes forced abortion or coerced sterilization, the applicant will be forced to abort a pregnancy or to undergo involuntary sterilization, or will be persecuted for failure or refusal to do so … Although the provision of Executive Order No. 12711 for enhanced consideration’ does not require an INS trial attorney to make an affirmative recommendation based on evidence that he or she sincerely regards as incredible, it is especially important in these cases that the attorney be engaged in a genuine search for truth. The INS attorney should be just as diligent in searching for indications that the applicant or the applicant’s evidence may be credible as for indications that it may not be.

  193 In Rees’s view: Isabelle de Pommereau, “Chinese Refugees Turn Waiting into an Art Form,” Christian Science Monitor, May 30, 1996.

  193 Six weeks before: Nicholas Kristof, “Chinas Crackdown on Births: A Stunning and Harsh Success,” New York Times, April 25, 1993.

  194 Abortion was less common: Jim Yardley, “Face of Abortion in China: A Young, Single Woman,” New York Times, May 13, 2007.

  194 But as a tactic: Kristof, “Chinas Crackdown on Births.”

  194 Rees found it scandalous: Grover Joseph Rees deposition in Yang You Yi, et al. v. Janet Reno, 852 F.Supp.316 (1994).

  195 “We are making arrangements”: Katy Butler, “Seven Die as Smuggle Ship Runs Aground in New York,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 7, 1993.

  195 In a memo to Vice President: Memo for the Vice President, “Immigration Issues,” from Donsia Strong, Eric Schwartz, and Rand Beers, July 7, 1993.

  195 A Justice Department document: Department of Justice limited official use document, “The Immigration Emergency,” July 8, 1993.

  195 The solution was to expedite: Letter from Gerald Hurwitz, counsel to the director, Executive Office for Immigration Review, to Phyllis Coven, assistant to the attorney general, June 15, 1993.

  196 “The Golden Venture is sort of”: White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “Background Briefing by Senior Administration Officials” (Rand Beers and Donsia Strong), June 18, 1993.

  196 After several days: Unless otherwise indicated, the account of Ann Carr’s meeting with Sean Chen is drawn from interviews with Ann Carr, November 21, 2005, and June 10, 2008; a written recollection by Ann Carr of her involvement in the Golden Venture cases; Sean Chens immigration file; and interviews with Sean Chen on February 6, 2008, and June 5, 2008.

  196 There had been many: See Mary S. Erbaugh and Richard Curt Kraus, “The 1989 Democracy Movement in Fujian and Its Aftermath,” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 23 (January 1990).

  197 The clerk told her: E-mail from Ann Carr, November 17, 2005. Carr also maintained this account in a sworn affidavit dated August 31, 1993.

  200 The State Department had prepared: “Asylum Claims Relating to Family Planning in Fujian Province,” State Department Office of Asylum Affairs, Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, August 1993.

  200 The memo conceded: Ibid.

  200 When the Rutgers criminologist: Chin, Smuggled Chinese, p. 115.

  200 Peter Kwong: Kwong, Forbidden Workers, p. 57.

  201 During the fall of 1993: “China: Abusive Family Planning Practices and Asylum,” memo from Eric Schwartz to Sandy Berger, December 13, 1993; “Processing of Chinese Nationals Who Fear Coercive Family Planning Practices,” memorandum by Chris Sale, deputy commissioner, Immigration and Naturalization Service, August 5, 1994.

  201 Eventually the Board of Immigration Appeals: Matter of G—, 20 I. & N. Dec. 764, Interim Decision (BIA) 3215, 1993.

  201 By September: Faison, “U.S. Tightens Asylum Rules.”

  201.Of those who did succeed: Kwong, Forbidden Workers, p. 50. On the historical presence of large numbers of Christian missionaries in Fujian, see Graham Hutchings, Modern China: A Guide to a Century of Change (Cam bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), p. 151.

  202.“It seems we were unlucky”: Fai son, “U.S. Tightens Asylum Rules.”

  202 One of Sean’s fellow inmates: Nina Bernstein, “Making It Ashore, But Still Chasing U.S. Dream,” New York Times, April 9, 2006.

  CHAPTER 12: THE FAT MAN

  The principal sources for this chapter are interviews with current and former FBI and immigration officials who were involved in the effort to capture Ah Kay and other members of the Fuk Ching gang. For reasons of narrative economy, and because the relevant officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement made the investigators Karen Pace and Mona Foreman available to speak with me only in a very limited capacity, the story of the capture of Weng Yu Hui is dealt with more briefly than I might have liked. My account of the Fat Man, Dickson Yao, draws on an extensive interview with Richard LaMagna, a former DEA agent who served as Yao’s handler and knew him for twenty years. I was eager to interview Yao myself but was told by Jerry Stuchiner that he died several years ago. (“He just kept eating,” Stuchiner explained.) James Mills’s fantastic 1986 book The Underground Empire, which draws on interviews with Yao and input from numerous agents who handled him over the years, paints a picture of this charismatic scallywag. I spoke with Jerry Stuchiner several times and exchanged a handful of e-mails with him, but the portrait of him draws also on the recollections of numerous former FBI, INS, and DEA agents who encountered him over the years. For reasons that become clear in Chapter Sixteen, everyone seems to have a Jerry Stuchiner story. As indicated in the notes, Brook Larmer and Melinda Liu’s extraordinary 1997 Newsweek article about Stuchiner and Yao was also very useful.

  203 Scores of mourners: Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, October 31, 2005; Anthony DeStefano, “Gang Leader ‘Blew $1 M,’” Newsday, August 31, 1993.

  203 He had joined: Plum Beach was so popular, in fact, that less than two months after that body was discovered, another victim was found on the same beach. See Russell Ben-Ali, “Cops Accused: Family Blames Police in Sons Kidnap Death,” Newsday, September 29, 1993.

  203 He had been hog-tied: Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, October 31, 2005.

  203.As the mourners lined up: Unless otherwise noted, details of the Green-Wood Cemetery raid are drawn from interviews with Konrad Motyka on October 31, 2005, December 15, 2005, and October 19, 2007, and from a photograph of Motyka and Shafer in the cemetery taken following the raid.

  204.Motyka remembered: Donatella Lorch, “Mourners Returned Fire, Police Say,” New York Times, July 30, 1990.

  204 Motyka had grown up: These biographical details are drawn from inter views with Konrad Motyka on October 31, 2005, December 15, 2005, and October 19, 2007.

  204.C-6 was run: Interview with Ray Kerr, May 22, 2007; interview with Tom Trautman, May 3, 2007.

  205.Nearly three months earlier: Jimmy Breslin, “A Familiar Refrain: Its Not My Fault,’” Newsday, June 8, 1993.

  206.Because alien smuggling convictions: Interview with Jodi Avergun, May 24, 2007.

  206 The judge, Reena Raggi: Dennis Hevesi, “Judge Rejects a Plea Bargain for Defendants in Ship Death,” New York Times, April 9, 1994.

  206 When he was asked: Lee testimony, Lee trial.

  206 And despite his protests: Pete Bowles, “Smuggler Sentenced,” Newsday, July 14, 1994.

  206 Several years after he was released: Jane Hadley and Scott Sunde, “Why Smuggle Pot to NW? Authorities Puzzled; There’s Plenty Here,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 3, 1997.

  206 As investigators questioned: Interview with Mona Foreman and Karen Pace, of ICE, June 19, 2007.

  206 On the morning the Golden Venture: Weng Yu Hui testimony, Sister Ping trial.

  207 The following month: Ibid.

  207 Again Sister
Ping volunteered: Ibid.

  207 He never made it to South Africa: Ibid.

  207 But he kept coming back: Details of the capture of Weng Yu Hui are from an interview with Karen Pace and Mona Foreman, who led the investigation into Weng and were present at the arrest, June 19, 2007.

  207 He pleaded guilty: Joseph P. Fried, “An Organizer Admits Guilt in Smuggling,” New York Times, June 30, 1994.

  207 Within hours of the Golden Venture’s arrival: “Chinese Gang Linked to Grounded Refugee Ship,” United Press International, June 8, 1993.

  207 Konrad Motyka was working: Interview with Luke Rettler, May 30, 2008.

  208 Stories circulated in Chinatown: Interview with Luke Rettler, July 26, 2007; interview with Tom Trautman, May 3, 2007.

  208 After the killings at Teaneck: Alan Tam testimony, the Teaneck trial.

  208 When he was asked: Interview with William J. Murray, April 19, 2007.

  208 Before Tam hung up: Alan Tam testimony, the Teaneck trial; interview with Tom Trautman, May 3, 2007.

  209 At considerable expense: Interview with Tom Trautman, May 3, 2007; interview with Luke Rettler, July 26, 2007. The detective who recognized Tam was Margie Yee.

  209-10 Ah Kay was already: Testimony in United States v. Kwok Ling Kay, et al., 93 CR. 783, October 12, 1993.

  210 When Ah Kay fled: Interview with Ray Kerr, May 22, 2007.

  210 Of course Ah Kay: Ibid.

  210 The older man found: Ibid.

  210 “Are you on the cell phone?”: Ibid.

  210 The members of the Fuk Ching

  207 gang: Interview with Luke Rettler, May 30, 2008.

  210 Like Mock Duck: Asbury, Gangs of New York, p. 282.

  211 Since the Golden Venture: Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, October 31, 2005.

  211 So he started making trips: Ibid.

  211 He ran up debts: Ah Kay testimony, Sister Ping trial.

  211 One day in mid-August: Transcript of a telephone conversation between Ah Kay and “Ah Shu,” August 16, 1993.

  207 Under Title III: Interview with Luke Rettler, July 26, 2007; interview with Chauncey Parker, May 29, 2007.