Visa rules fuel smuggling of Koreans to U.S. from B.C. American authorities say the illicit flow over the border has doubled in the past year. Chad Skelton, Sun Immigration Reporter Vancouver Sun; With files from Canadian Press and Associated Press The number of South Koreans caught trying to sneak into the U.S. from B.C. has almost doubled over the past year, an intelligence agent with the U.S. Border Patrol says. And the border patrol -- which has only a few agents to monitor the B.C.-Washington boundary -- has said probably only a fraction of those crossing are captured. Almost 100 Koreans have been caught in the border area just south of Vancouver since the beginning of the agency's fiscal year last October, said Dave Keller, an intelligence agent with the border patrol in Blaine, Wash. "Our figures are probably double from last year," he said Sunday. The most recent smuggling incident occurred late Friday. At 11 p.m., 21 Koreans who flew into Vancouver Thursday were arrested by the U.S. border patrol after crossing into the U.S. near the Nighthawk port of entry, south of the B.C. Interior town of Keremeos. Leon Benoit, the Alliance party's immigration critic, called on the immigration department Sunday to look at reinstating visa requirements for visitors from South Korea. At present, South Koreans require a visa to go to the U.S., but not Canada -- a disparity authorities on both sides of the border say is partly responsible for the booming Korean-smuggling business in this country. "Most of the ones we're catching are unable to get U.S. visas," Keller said. "So they're just abusing the Canadian system, basically." Immigration minister Elinor Caplan was unavailable for comment Sunday. Richard Graham, the agent in charge of the patrol's office in Oroville, Wash. which made Friday's arrests, said such mass smuggling attempts are rare along that part of the border. But Korean smuggling is increasingly common along the border south of Vancouver. Last summer, U.S. authorities cracked a Canadian-based smuggling ring suspected of transporting hundreds of Koreans into the U.S. for fees ranging between $300 and $3,000. The group was alleged to have picked up Koreans at the airport, taken them to a "safehouse" in Surrey and then driven them to an open field near Abbotsford where they were told to walk across into the U.S. While the number of Koreans smuggled into the U.S. is a growing concern, Keller said he's sympathetic to the difficulty Canadian authorities have in cracking down on the problem. "It's a fairly complicated issue trying to ferret out the ones abusing the system versus the legitimate businessmen and travellers," Keller said. Travel to Canada from South Korea has jumped dramatically over the past few years. A total of 99,000 South Koreans visited Canada last year -- making Korea our 13th largest source of tourists, just behind Switzerland (101,000) and Italy (112,000). And in the first few months of this year, visitors from South Korea have been up more than 50 per cent over 1999. Rick Antonson, president of Tourism Vancouver, said Sunday he doesn't know enough about Korean smuggling to say whether requiring South Koreans to get visas is a good idea. But such a requirement would almost certainly put a dent in the number of Korean tourists in Vancouver, he said. "Any time there's extra paperwork ... it gets in the way of travelling," he said. "Ease of access ... is always an advantage when you're marketing a destination." The possible impact on tourism and trade makes Benoit reluctant to say visitors visas should be required of South Koreans. But he said he doubts Canada has any other option. "If you do put a visa requirement in place, there will be a real economic loss," Benoit said. "[But] it has to be considered. ... I don't see any other way of dealing with it [people-smuggling]." Many popopular tourist destinations have strict visa requirements. Australia, for example, requires visitors from all countries except New Zealand to obtain visitors visas. If Canada did decide to crack down on Korean visitors, it would not be the first time it took such action. Ottawa reinstated visa requirements for the Czech Republic in 1997 after hundreds of Czech Gypsies flooded into Canada and claimed refugee status. Meanwhile, as border patrol agents in Washington State struggle to deal with the increased smuggling of people and marijuana from B.C., their resources are being cut. Several agents and patrol planes in the north have been redeployed to the Mexican border -- where illegal migration is a much larger problem.