中国城的庇护移民欺诈：一个充满谎言的行业

本文由网易移民频道独家翻译整理，转载请注明出处。

网易教育讯 《纽约时报》最新文章聚焦了纽约唐人街的庇护移民欺诈问题，唐人街的庇护移民律师事务所几乎都变成了谎言事务所，而律师则是谎言制造机。

部分内容翻译如下：

A Chinese woman walked into a law office in New York’s Chinatown and asked to see her lawyer. She had applied for asylum, claiming that she had been forced to get an abortion in China to comply with the country’s family-planning laws, and she was anxious about her coming interview with immigration officials.

一个中国妇女走进了纽约中国城的一家律师事务所去见她的律师。她申请庇护移民，声称自己在中国曾因为配合计划生育而堕胎，她很担心即将到来的与移民官的面试。

She had good reason to be worried: Her claim, invented by her lawyer’s associates, was false.

她其实有理由担心，因为她所谓的声称都是她律师的助理编造的，都是假的。

But the lawyer, John Wang, told her to relax. The process, he said, was straightforward, and as long as she memorized a few details, everything would be fine. “You are making yourself nervous,” he said in Mandarin. “All you would be asked is the same few rubbish questions.”

但她的律师，John Wang，告诉她放松点。他说，庇护移民的过程是很直截了当的，只要她记住一些细节，一切都没问题。他用中文说，”你在让自己紧张，其实你将要被问的只是几个非常简单的问题罢了。“

“Just make it up,” the lawyer added.

”只管编就行了“，Wang律师补充到。

The conversation, in December 2010, was secretly recorded by federal officials conducting a wide investigation of immigration fraud in New York’s Chinese population. The inquiry has led to the prosecution of at least 30 people — lawyers (including Mr. Wang), paralegals, interpreters and even an employee of a church, who is on trial, accused of coaching asylum applicants in basic tenets of Christianity to prop up their claims of religious persecution. All were charged with helping hundreds of Chinese immigrants apply for asylum using false tales of persecution.

这段2010年12月的对话是被联邦官员秘密录音的，他们当时正在执行一项有关纽约城中国人的移民欺诈调查。那次调查导致30人遭起诉， 包括律师、律师助理、翻译、甚至还有一名教堂雇员；后者被指控辅导宗教迫害庇护申请者的基本说辞。上述所有人都被指控帮助数百名中国移民利用编造的假故事申请庇护。

The transcript of the conversation in Mr. Wang’s office, which was disclosed in a recent court filing, offered a rare look at the hidden side of the Chinese asylum industry in New York.

这段在王先生办公室的对话记录在最近的法庭文件中被揭露出来，揭开了纽约城中国庇护移民产业隐藏的一面。

More Chinese immigrants apply for asylum than any other immigrant group in the country, with the Chinese population in New York leading the way: Over the past six years, about half of all applications filed by Chinese immigrants not facing deportation were submitted in New York City. (Comparable data for asylum applications from those in deportation proceedings was not available.)

在美国中国人申请庇护移民的数量比其他移民族群更多，首先纽约的中国人口本身就多：过去6年中，在不面临遣返的中国移民申请中有将近一半是在纽约市申请。

In fiscal year 2012, Chinese immigrants filed more than 62 percent of all asylum cases received by the federal asylum office in New York, which in recent years has received more Chinese applications than the next 10 nationalities combined.

在2012财年，在纽约联邦难民办公室收到的所有庇护移民申请中有62%来自中国人。纽约联邦庇护移民办公室最近几年收到的中国庇护申请比其他10个族裔的申请总和都多。

Though the prevalence of fraud is unknown, federal officials appear to regard the applicant pool in New York with considerable suspicion. In fiscal year 2013, asylum officers around the country granted 40 percent of all Chinese asylum requests, according to government data. In New York City, asylum officers approved only 15 percent.

尽管庇护移民欺诈的普遍性并不可知，但联邦官员们似乎对纽约的庇护申请抱有相当的怀疑。在2013财年，全球的庇护移民办公室批准了全球中国庇护移民申请的40%，但在纽约市，移民官只批准了申请的15%。

Peter Kwong, a professor at the City University of New York and an expert on the Chinese population in New York, said it was an open secret in the Chinese community that most asylum applications were at least partly false, from fabricated narratives of persecution to counterfeit supporting documents and invented witness testimony.

纽约市立大学教授，同时也是纽约中国人口问题研究专家彼得·邝（Peter Kwong）说，庇护申请不是全部编造也至少是部分编造，编造手段包括造假受迫害的叙述、提供假的支持文件或者制造证词等，而这在华人社区也已是公开的秘密 。

To asylum-seekers, he said, “it’s not an issue of right or wrong. It’s an issue about whether they can get it and their means to get it.”

对庇护移民申请者来说，他说，”这不是对或错的问题，是到底他们能不能拿到绿卡以及如何拿到绿卡的问题。“

The growth in the Chinese asylum industry over the past decade has coincided with an increase in Chinese migration to the United States and in the number of Chinese arriving on temporary visas, some with the intention of staying. Many have made New York City their primary destination. Between 2000 and 2011, the foreign-born Chinese population in New York City grew by a third, to more than 350,000 from about 261,500, and is now on the verge of overtaking Dominicans as the city’s largest immigrant group, according to New York’s City Planning Department.

华人庇护行业过去十年来的发展同华人移民以及持短期签证，并且部分是以居留为目的的中国人的增加同步。他们中的许多人都是以纽约为初始目的地。从2000年到2011年，纽约市在外国出生的华人从26.15万上升到35万，即将超过多米尼加人成为最大的族裔。

As an increasing number of Chinese have sought permanent immigration status here, asylum has become a popular way to achieve it: Asylum recipients are granted immediate permission to work and can apply for a green card a year later. Amid this rising demand, an ecosystem of law offices and other businesses specializing in asylum — not to mention a darker subculture of forgers and fake lawyers — has flourished in the crowded office buildings of Manhattan’s Chinatown and above storefronts along the bustling streets of Chinese enclaves in Flushing, Queens, and Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

由于越来越多的中国人希望取得永久绿卡，庇护移民就成为了获得绿卡的重要途径：庇护移民获批者可以得到直接的工作许可，一年后可以申请绿卡。正是因为这种日益增长的需求，律师事务所和其他专门从事庇护的机构--不用说还有伪造者和假律师等次产业--正在曼哈顿唐人街拥挤的建筑中大量涌现。同时在法拉盛、皇后区一级布鲁克林的日落公园等中国人聚居的繁荣街道上，有很多门面楼上方也出现了一些律师事务所 。

The trade has generated healthy revenues. Some firms ask $1,000 to handle a case, then they add incremental fees that might total more than $10,000 — steep for most of the applicants, many of whom are restaurant and construction workers, nannies and manicurists.

这个行业收入不菲。有些律师事务所一个案子收费1000美元起价，随后再加各种费用，最终能超过1万美元；这对于大多数申请者来说是极高的，因为很多申请者是辛苦挣钱的餐馆工、建筑工、保姆和指甲工。

But some involved in the business say they are motivated more by politics and moral principles than by money.

但一些行业中人说他们的动机不是为了钱，而是为了政治或者道德准则。

“We are doing work like the last stop on the Underground Railroad,” said David Miao, the owner of an immigration law office in Chinatown. He was among those indicted in the investigation that also implicated Mr. Wang; the case became public with the unsealing of nine indictments and a series of raids in December 2012. He has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit immigration fraud.

David Miao说，我们的工作就像是地下铁路的最后一站，他是中国城一家律师事务所的拥有者。他是涉及到王律师的那次调查的其中一个被起诉者。在2012年12月的一系列搜查和9个诉讼被揭开以后，Miao先生的案例也就公诸于众，不过他申求了无罪，不承认自己密谋进行移民欺诈。

“If we didn’t do this, they will be sent back to China,” he said in an interview. “We save lives.”

他在一次访谈中说，”如果我们不这样做，他就会被遣返到中国。我们是在救命。“

The volume of petitions has clogged the federal bureaucratic machinery, overwhelming asylum officers and judges. The deputy director of the New York asylum office blamed fraud, in part, for the deluge, and said she had tripled her team of asylum officers to dig out of a two-year backlog of cases.

The schemes “wreaked havoc on the asylum system as a whole,” the official, Ashley B. Caudill-Mirillo, wrote in a letter to a federal judge in November.

The 2012 indictments appear to have disrupted, at least temporarily, the surge of Chinese asylum applications in New York. But when asked to comment publicly about how extensive asylum fraud remains among Chinese applicants, most officials declined.

Speaking privately, however, they concurred with the prevailing opinion in the Chinese diaspora: that the problem is ubiquitous and that one high-profile case will not curb it.

The United States has a long tradition of offering refuge to foreigners fleeing persecution. Whether in the country legally or not, immigrants can petition for asylum within one year of arriving. They must show they are unable or unwilling to return to their country because they have “a well-founded fear of persecution” based on their race, religion, nationality or membership in a particular social or political group.

美国在给国外逃亡的受迫害者提供避难方面有一个很久的传统。不管你是合法还是非法在美国，移民都可以在到达后的一年之内提交庇护申请。他们必须表明自己无法或不愿回到他们的国家，因为他们有非常强烈的受迫害风险，或者因为种族，或者因为宗教，或者因为国籍，或者因为是某个社会或政治小组的成员。

In fiscal year 2012, about 56,400 asylum applications were filed in asylum offices or in courts throughout the country. In the same year, about 29,500 people were granted asylum, the most since 2002, when 37,000 received it.

2012财年，全国大约有56400分庇护申请递交到各庇护移民办公室或法庭。同年，大约有29500人获批，这是自2002年37000人获批之后最多的一年。

False asylum petitions are among the most common forms of immigration fraud, in part because they are difficult to detect, experts said. Since many claims are based on events that took place amid armed conflict or political turmoil, the narratives and supporting documents can be hard for the American authorities to verify.

庇护申请造假是移民欺诈中的最常见形式，专家说，部分是因为它们很难被侦察到。因为很多声明都是基于发生在战乱或政治暴乱地方的事件，所以声明中的描述和支持文件对于美国机构来说都很难去验证。

And while the Chinese asylum pool has drawn increasing scrutiny in recent years, asylum fraud cuts across all immigrant groups, officials say, cropping up among populations from societies in turmoil such as Guineans seeking refuge from political upheaval, Afghans fleeing war, Russians looking for sanctuary from homophobia and Mexicans running from drug violence.

Among the Chinese, the vast majority of applicants claim they were either forced to endure abortions or sterilization under China’s family planning laws or that they fear persecution based on their adherence to Christianity or their participation in banned groups like the Chinese Democracy Party and Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that has been labeled a cult by the government.

在中国移民的庇护申请中，大多数申请者都声称他们或者因为计划生育被强迫堕胎或绝育，或者因为是基督教徒或参与某些被禁止的团体而遭到迫害。

And while many such claims are legitimate, officials and industry specialists said, an untold number are not. Mr. Kwong said the cases were easy to fake.

“The law itself provides a huge loophole, and that loophole cannot be closed because of the politics,” he said.

法律本身就提供了巨大的漏洞，而这个漏洞又由于政治原因不能被关闭。彼得·邝 Kwong说。

Sometimes the fraud consists of little more than embellishing stories to make them seem more believable. Other times, the accounts are complete fiction.

有时候造假只是比修饰故事更多一点点的内容以使故事更加可信，而有时整个故事都是造假。

Narratives and documents are recycled from client to client, with the names and dates changed — though sometimes the lawyers forget to do even that.

叙述和文件甚至都可以循环利用，这个客户用完，下个客户还可以再用，只需要把姓名和日期改一下——甚至有时候这些律师都忘记改了。

Several immigrants said in interviews in Chinatown and Flushing that while their cases were based on true stories of persecution, some of the documents supporting their claims were false. (Many Chinese immigrants interviewed for this article agreed to talk only on the condition of anonymity.)

A well-connected member of the Taiwanese community in Queens said that while working at an immigration law office in Queens several years ago, one of his tasks was to use Photoshop to superimpose clients’ faces onto file photos of people who had been beaten by the police in China. “Everything was prefabricated,” he said.

皇后区有一个台湾人社团，其中一个人脉很广的成员说，他几年前在皇后区的移民律师事务所工作的时候，他的其中一个任务就是用Photoshop把客户的脸P到被中国警察追打的那些人的头上，”一切都是提前准备好的“，他说。

In Flushing and other Chinese enclaves, many churches give attendance receipts to help parishioners prove their Christian faith to asylum officers. It is widely believed in the Chinese community that the pews are full of as many nonbelievers as true believers.

在法拉盛和其他一些华人聚居区，许多教堂都提供出席收据以帮助信徒向移民官证明他们的基督教信仰。很多人都觉得华社中教堂基本上真正的信仰者和假的信仰者是一半一半。

The dozens of people rounded up in 2012, including employees of at least 10 law firms, were accused of “weaving elaborate fictions” on behalf of hundreds of clients and coaching them on how to lie during their asylum interviews and in court. One of the lawyers would sign blank asylum petitions and let others fill them out with stories he never reviewed, prosecutors said.

数十位2012年被集结起来的人，包括至少10家律师事务所的雇员，都被指控替他们上百位客户”编造精致的故事“以及教他们如何在庇护面试和法庭中撒谎。甚至一个律师会签署一份空白的庇护申请，然后让其他人弃填故事，而这位律师从不去审阅这些故事。

Victor You, a star witness for the prosecution who worked as an assistant at several law firms and pleaded guilty to immigration fraud, said he would craft a story based on characteristics like clients’ ages and schooling. He would feed the Falun Gong narrative to uneducated immigrants because it was easiest to remember, he said in court testimony last week. Christianity claims went to young immigrants with at least a high school education.

Victor You是诉讼中的主要证人，他曾经在多个律师事务所做助理，并且对于移民欺诈行为也进行了招认。他说，他会根据客户的特征，比如年龄和学历来编造故事。如果是编造基督教徒的故事，那么应该是给年轻的、至少有高中学历的申请者。

When clients veered off-script during interviews with asylum officers, prosecutors said, some interpreters would falsely translate the client’s words.

Liying Lin, a defendant who worked at a church in Flushing, would give paid lessons in the basics of Christianity for immigrants seeking asylum for religious reasons and would coach applicants on how to lie, prosecutors said.

Liying Lin，在法拉盛一个教堂工作，她也是一个被告。她被指控为庇护移民申请者提供付费的基督教基础知识讲解，以使他们能够以宗教原因申请庇护，同时她还教申请者如何撒谎。

Ms. Lin’s trial on immigration fraud began last Tuesday. While she declined to comment for this article, her lawyer, Kenneth Paul, said in court that she was a devout Christian whose “goal was to help these individuals find God through the teachings of Christianity.”

Of the eight lawyers indicted, officials said, Mr. Wang was one of the most prolific. Between 2010 and 2012, his office filed more than 1,300 asylum petitions with the New York asylum office.

His methods were revealed in the recording of his discussion with the Chinese client, who was preparing to tell immigration officials that she had been forced to get an abortion because she had become pregnant out of wedlock.

Mr. Wang and a paralegal briefed her on the sequence of fictitious events she had to memorize: the missed period, the knock at the door, government officials hauling her to a clinic, the feeling of a medical tool inside her, the dates of her trip to the United States.

王先生和他的一位助手帮助这位客户列出了一些她需要熟记的事情：错过经期的情形、敲门的情形、政府官员拉着她去诊所的情形、医疗器具穿过她身体的情形、来美国的日期等。

He said asylum was nearly a foregone conclusion: Cases like hers were getting approved without a problem. “It’s too easy,” he said.

More than half of the defendants have pleaded guilty, including. Mr. Wang, who was sentenced in December to two years of probation.

超过半数的被告都认罪了，包括王先生，他被判处2年的缓刑。

The indictments in 2012 cast blanket suspicion over the entire business, including applicants with legitimate claims and upstanding law practices with large Chinese clienteles. In the years before the raid, the flow of applications to the New York asylum office had risen sharply, peaking at about 7,000 in fiscal year 2012, up from about 1,700 in 2006. But after the raid, the volume plummeted, to about 4,300 in 2013, according to federal data. Immigration officials refused to speculate on the cause of the drop.

In the days after the raids, law offices and immigration agencies in Chinatown and Flushing were swarmed by clients worried about their asylum requests.

“We were looking for an expert in the law to do things a legal way,” said Zeng Hang, a cook who took a day off from his job at a Chinese restaurant in Connecticut to check on the status of his case. He was among scores of clients at 2 East Broadway, an office building in Chinatown raided by the F.B.I.

Li Bo, another cook, said he and others had assumed that if they were to entrust their cases to lawyers, then they would be in good hands. “They represent the law, do they not?” he said.

No asylum applicants were prosecuted in this case; officials have generally reserved their contempt for the lawyers, paralegals and others accused of orchestrating the frauds. At his sentencing in December, Mr. Wang, who is in his early 30s, explained that he had become an immigration lawyer “because I am also an immigrant and I want to help immigrants in this country.”

Describing himself as “young and inexperienced,” he struck a tone of remorse. “I know I made the wrong decision when I got involved in this fraud,” he said.

But in interviews, others involved in the schemes were not as contrite, rationalizing their actions.

有一些人不悔悟，不认罪。

Some said they were motivated by a compulsion to help Chinese immigrants make a better life for themselves. Those who had worked so hard to flee authoritarian rule in China, they argued, should be able to stay in the United States.

有一些人说他们是出于想帮助中国移民过上一个更好生活的动机。他们说，那些付出了巨大努力才从中国的权威制度中的逃脱出来的人应该能够留在美国。

“According to my system of values, what I did is correct,” said Xu Lu, a defendant who worked as an interpreter at law firms implicated in the schemes.

曾在律所担任翻译的被告人Xu Lu说，”在我的价值观里，我做的是对的。“对于自己的行为，他这样辩解，”虽然你所做的是违法的，但是它是正义的；你帮助了弱者，你将会被这个世界爱戴并铭记。“

“What you did is against the law but it is righteous,” he said of his actions. “You helped the weak. And you will be loved and remembered by the world.”