The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream (59 page)

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 failure 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.