The Snakehead

Ten years into Trump’s war of hate against immigrants, I got around to reading The Snakehead, Patrick Radden Keefe’s fascinating exploration of the underground operation to smuggle people into America.

Great read. Well researched. Vivid scenes. As relevant as it was when published in 2009. 

Keefe’s story centers on Chinese-American smugglers who’ve mastered the art of smuggling people from China into our country.

Sometimes they sneak them up from Mexico in the hidden parts of cars and trucks. Or down from Canada, battling the turbulent Niagara River on plastic rafts  Or in planes from Asia or South America. Or on rickety ships, packed to the gills, that sail to the shores of the promised land.

Where there's a will there’s a way. Especially when the immigrants are so eager to get here that they pay thousands to their smugglers, a crew of enterprising characters who've made their fortunes playing this game.

Keefe focuses on the legendary Sister Ping, who came to New York City to work as a nanny and wound up making about $40 million, overseeing a vast smuggling enterprise out of her knickknack shop in Chinatown.

Savvy hustler--that Sister Ping. Got to read about her to believe her. Like a character out of The Wire—only real. Operating under the radar. Tiny grandmother. Barely spoke English. You’d pass her in the street and never look twice at her.

But what a player—with contacts throughout the world. She laundered money. Manufactured phony passports and green cards. Kept up with the forever changing ins and outs of immigration law so she could adjust her tactics in real time. Had contacts on the police department and FBI.

Sister Ping—as entrepreneurial as Zuckerberg and Bezos...

For a while, she fed info to the FBI. Kept them off balance--letting them think she’d switched sides. All the time running her game.

I’m telling you--the richest Wall Street and Silicon Valley predators have nothing on Sister Ping for street smarts, hard-ball hustle, greed and audacity. 

Having read The Snakehead, I’m convinced we should have well-regulated open borders. If you have a market of people willing to pay thousands to come here, why let the money go to smugglers? Why not collect the money on behalf of our schools and health care and public services? 

Might bring enough money to help lower property taxes here in Chicago. And pay our teachers. And make good on police pensions. And…sorry, got carried away. 

Instead, we’re paying billions in guns and guards and fences to keep them away or throw them out after they sneak in. Thus, incentivizing the very underground market we say we want to destroy. Our immigration policy makes as much sense as our war on drugs–which made no sense at all.

You know as well as I do there's no logical reason for our fear of immigrants.  They commit less crime than native-born Americans--which is why MAGA has to harp on the relatively few horrific crimes they do commit.

MAGA says--oh, they're taking our jobs. Though Americans clearly don’t want the jobs immigrants take, which is why those jobs are there for the taking.

In contrast, AI technology takes more jobs from Americans than immigrants do. Yet we worship the former and demonize the latter. We shovel billions to the robot-building companies–effectively, spending money to put Americans out of work.

While we spend more billions to harass, arrest, lock up and deport immigrants–in the name of saving jobs.

Keep this up, and the only jobs left in America will be with ICE. Until the gang of thieves who run our country figure a way to get robots to do that.

Anyway, thank you, Leo--for turning me on to Keefe's book.