Chinese teens picked up by border patrol...

Chinese teens picked up by border patrol
Group found walking along M-29

By BOBBY AMPEZZAN
Times Herald


Three teenage Chinese nationals are being housed in the St. Clair and Washtenaw county jails after being arrested in Clay Township shortly after officials said they illegally crossed the border.

The teens -- ages 16, 17 and 18 -- were picked up by border patrol about 11 p.m. Saturday while walking along M-29 about two miles north of the Walpole Island ferry crossing, agent Kurstan Rosberg said. They were wearing wet clothes, Rosberg said. He didn't know where they crossed the St. Clair River.

The 17- and 18-year-old told officials they are from the city of Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, an area just south of Shanghai. The youngest refused to give a hometown. All three spoke poor English, Rosberg said. They had passports but no other travel documents.

The case has been turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Rosberg said, which will move the group out of the jails to a contracted immigration detention facility. Rosberg did not know when the three will have an immigration hearing.

Rosberg said catching illegal immigrants from China is unusual. Last year, only seven of the 904 illegal immigrants picked up by the Detroit sector of U.S. Customs and Border Protection were Chinese.

Sector Detroit has monitoring stations along Michigan's eastern border from Sault Ste. Marie to Trenton. More than three-quarters of the people arrested by the sector last year were Mexicans, Rosberg said. The majority of the others arrested were from Central American countries such as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Rosberg did not have specific information about arrests made by agents from the local border patrol station in Marysville.

The Saturday arrests highlight a trend of human smuggling into Michigan that begins in Toronto, Rosberg said.

"In general terms, what we've seen is a pattern for crossings in this area (that begins) in Toronto. It's a 'decision point.' From there, they go here or Buffalo or Vermont," he said.



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