This is an odd story of how three nations' air forces combined to rescue 11 aliens who were seeking to move illegally from one part of the U.S. to another.
Typically, illegal aliens come into the U.S. from a foreign nation; but out in the far western Pacific, where somewhat different versions of the immigration laws apply to Guam and to the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands it is possible for an alien to be legally present in the CNMI but an illegal on nearby Guam.
Last week 11 aliens, all from China, all of whom had been legally present in CNMI at one time, but no longer, decided to travel from CNMI on a 20-foot boat to Guam; had they landed on Guam it would have been an illegal entry, but a storm intervened, and they called for help.
First a CNMI rescue boat sought to save them, but just as the Commonwealth's government is routinely inept, the rescue effort failed.
Next, the U.S. Coast Guard got into the act, calling on all ships and planes to look out for the endangered boat; the first to see it was a French Air Force plane, presumably based on Guam.
One of the multitudinous costs of illegal aliens is that, from time to time, the U.S. military is used in such rescue operations.
The women were allowed to stay on Guam until their asylum cases were reviewed by INS officers based in Hawaii, who traveled to Guam from time to time.
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