Posted online: Mar 14th, 2007

A scathing attack on the “common” practise of Chinese immigrants posing as students and then disappearing into the black economy was launched yesterday (Tuesday) by a judge who also serves on an immigration body.

Judge Desmond A. Zaidan said at Dungloe District Court that he had no doubt a Chinese restaurant proprietor who admitted a breach of the immigration laws knew what he was doing when he remained in Ireland after an 18-month temporary student visa expired in 2003.

The judge said 24-year-old Shixue Hou “was playing with the system and taking advantage of the hospitality the State had extended to him”.
Judge Zaidan added: “I’m not going to condone it.”

He said Hou had an opportunity to put his status right when he could have gone to the authorities and explained his position but he chose not to.
“It is very common with the Chinese,” the judge added.

He said his conviction came from eight years on an appeals authority and his service as chairman of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal.

The court heard that Hou, who recently took over the Peking House restaurant in Glenties, walked into the local Garda station on a matter related to his car tax.

The officer at the desk was Det Gda David Moore, who was also the Immigration Officer in the area.

He told the court that Hou’s illegal status was revealed when a check of the immigration computer system showed that while he arrived as a student in July 2001 his visa had expired and he had been living illegally in Ireland since January 2003.

The court heard Hou had attended two colleges and when the second one shut down he remained on with a visa on which the year of expiry was changed from 2003 to 2005 by people who offered to organise valid documents.

Killybegs businessman Frank Gallagher gave evidence that Hou was of good character.

He said that when he discovered how poorly-paid Hou was in a restaurant in Killybegs he advised him to set up his own business.

The court also heard that Hou, who had applied for Irish citizenship, was not a burden on the State, paid taxes and did not draw welfare.
He had a girlfriend who was expecting a baby in a few months.

Judge Zaidan rejected a plea for leniency and remarked on the numbers of illegal Chinese who had disappeared into Ireland’s black economy.

He said: “If I make an exception for this man all the others will come out of the woodwork.”

He sentenced Hou to two months in jail for failing, as an alien, to produce valid immigration documents at Glenties.