They are known only by their four-digit numbers: 7281, 7302.
Zheng Shengli (
PHOTO: AFP
Each of the 53 numbers tells not only a tale of someone desperate enough to risk everything to come to Taiwan, but also show how long the bearer has to remain in detention. The lower the number, the sooner they depart for home.
With no plans for new releases before the holiday, the 53 prisoners bid goodbye to the Year of the Snake behind bars.
But the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said it wanted to do what it could to bring some cheer to the detention center.
"Because of humanitarian considerations, we hoped that at the very least those in custody could still talk to their families," said Pau Zheng-gang (
MAC provided three-minute free phone calls for each detainee to call their families in China last Thursday.
Many of the detainees cried as they spoke with their loved ones, and some were unable to hang up the phone when the conversations were over.
Huang Jin-yao (黃錦耀), the deputy director of the Chinese immigrants detention center in Ilan, said that every year "there are on average some 1,000 illegal Chinese immigrants waiting an average eight months in four detention centers in Taiwan to be repatriated."
Though they pass their days in the same way and wear the same coarse uniforms, each of the center's would-be immigrant has his or her own unique story.
Lin Tong-mu (
Lin was caught by police when he was visiting a friend in Hsinchu.
Lin told the Taipei Times that when he came to Taiwan as a stowaway on a boat in the middle of the night, he didn't even know where Taiwan was.
The human smugglers who bring the stowaways onto Taiwan's shores -- most commonly on fishing boats -- turn a high profit from the lucrative trade.
Zheng told reporters that he paid a human smuggling gang NT$20,000 to get to Taiwan, and that he paid another NT$20,000 to buy a fake identification card upon arrival.
Zheng lived in Sanchung, Taipei County and worked as a woodworker in Taiwan for four months until he was caught by police about two months ago.
Because Zheng bought an illegal ID card, he now is a criminal suspect and his case is pending. He said that although he worked for a Taiwanese boss for four months, he never received any income.
Zheng maintains that he did not know he was breaking the law and said, "If I had known things would go so wrong, I would have never come."
Officials at the center said that among the 53 detainees, 40 are between 21 and 40 years old. The highest education level among them is junior high school and 11 are illiterate.
Though their stories differ, all of the detainees came to Taiwan in hopes of earning more money.
"Life is hard in China," Zheng said. "We heard that it is easy to make more money in Taiwan -- that's why we're here."
Since the Taiwan government began to allow Taiwanese to visit their relatives in China in the early 1980s, Chinese citizens have come to learn more about Taiwan and the higher standard of living here.
Illegal immigration has grown steadily over the past 15 years.
The number of illegal Chinese immigrants detained in Taiwan reached its peak in 1993 with 5,944 persons, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.
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