The government must deal with illegal foreign migrant workers before they become a threat to national security, said a Control Yuan report published yesterday on a case in which 10 Vietnamese drowned last year.
Authorities at first thought it was due to a human smuggling operation when people found floating bodies washing ashore in the spring last year, but an investigation by various agencies and Vietnamese government officials helped to verify that the 10 corpses were Vietnamese whose boat had capsized in rough seas, the report said.
Four people remain unaccounted for. Their bodies were not recovered and they might have swum ashore to look for work in Taiwan, the report by Control Yuan members Yeh Ta-hua (葉大華) and Pasuya Poiconu said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Thirteen other bodies recovered from the sea last year were Taiwanese citizens, and police reports and checks with families led to the conclusion that most had been swept out to sea when fishing or walking on the shore, although some had spoken about committing suicide, the report said.
Testimony from family members and friends of the Vietnamese who drowned indicated that the 14 Vietnamese planned to enter Taiwan by sea to look for jobs and earn higher wages than they could back home.
Support networks for illegal Vietnamese workers are in place in Taiwan, Yeh said.
The report found that Vietnamese try to reach Taiwan by their own means and are not part of human smuggling operations, and that there is no Taiwanese involvement such as contacts to receive them at a prearranged destination, Yeh said.
The findings indicated that groups in Vietnam advertise on social media to sign up sufficient numbers to enter Taiwan by sea, for which they pay a fee of NT$100,000 to NT$200,000.
After taking a bus to the northern Vietnamese border, they walk into China and make their way to the coast of Fujian Province, where gangsters help them to buy a wooden boat to cross, or arrange for a fishing boat to cross to Taiwan, Yeh said.
National Immigration Agency (NIA) records showed that of the 14 Vietnamese who drowned or are missing, 13 had previously worked in Taiwan, but were repatriated back home after taking illegal jobs and breaching their contracts or overstaying their visas. Seven were listed as having tried to illegally enter Taiwan before, Poicuno said.
“Some in the group needed to work to pay off debt, to improve their family’s livelihood, and others wanted to reunite with family members or friends already working in Taiwan... The core problem is the nation’s labor market imbalance and a disparity in supply and demand for workers, leading to foreign migrant workers being willing to take risks to take an illegal job,” the report said.
The report reprimanded the Coast Guard Administration, the NIA and the National Police Agency for negligence and laxity of law enforcement, and for being unable to combat the illegal entry of migrant workers by sea.
Corrective measure must be taken before the situation causes national security concerns and the Cabinet should lead coordination efforts to implement effective border controls, the report said.
It also recommended that authorities crack down on underground banking and money transfer businesses, illicit labor brokers and hiring agencies, and other unlawful businesses serving undocumented foreign workers in Taiwan.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS