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late 1990s, Helping Hands Korea had set up shelters for refugees and, as Peters euphemistically put it in testimony before the United States Congress, the organization was “coordinating logistical support for their escape to third countries.” 8 In other words, the new underground railroad had opened for business.
    Working with colleagues from South Korea, Japan, the United States, Southeast Asia, and, especially, China, Peters helped set up a network of Christians who facilitated North Koreans’ escape from China. Their explicit model was the underground railroad that led African-American slaves out of the South to freedom in the nineteenth century. Like the original underground railroad in America, the new underground railroad in China was organized to operate in what Peters calls “separate, secure nodes,” so as to protect the identities of both the workers and the refugees. During an operation to transport refugees, for example, the locations of the safe houses remain secret. Rather than have the guide pick up the refugees at the safe house, which would necessitate revealing the address, the house manager will escort the refugees to a public place, where their guide will meet them.
    One of the hardest aspects of his work is deciding whom to help, Peters says. Resources severely limit the number of North Koreans Peters’s network can transport on the new underground railroad, and there are more prospective passengers than there are spaces. He admits to sleepless nights over some of the decisions he has had to make. There is no set of established criteria for winning a ticket on the new underground railroad, but some general guidelines have emerged over the years.
    â€œThe South Koreans or Korean-Americans on the ground in the border areas are the first ones to send up a flag as to who is needy,” Peters said. “They conduct interviews of refugees to find out more about their background, and they try to filter out those who may not be telling the truth. They try to find out who needs help and who needs it desperately.”

    Peters’s first priority is to help those who would suffer most if they were to be arrested and repatriated. That category includes women who are obviously pregnant. North Korea forces repatriated women to have abortions, even in the final months of pregnancy, and it kills newborns it believes have Chinese fathers. Also on the priority list are North Koreans with medical problems that make it unlikely they could survive the rigors of detention if arrested and sent back. So, too, are North Koreans who are at risk of being identified as Christian or as having had contact with Christians; North Korea metes out especially harsh treatment to Christians.
    For Peters, the toughest calls involve refugees who claim to be North Korean officials, especially if they are peddling information that they offer to trade for passage on the new underground railroad. “These are really dirty guys,” Peters said. If they are telling the truth, then they were complicit in the crimes they wish to confess. Only people who participated in such abuses would have evidence that they took place, and their victims are almost certainly dead. “Most of these guys you can’t trust with last year’s Christmas tree,” he said. “But then again, some of them might have information that would have a bombshell effect on the whole human rights situation. They might have highly incriminating evidence about what goes on inside North Korea. That’s the kind of dilemma that keeps me up at night.”
    In 2010, Peters considered a request for help from a man who said he was a state security agent and had explosive evidence of human rights abuses in the prison system. The agent and his family had fled to China, and he wanted to negotiate a deal whereby Peters’s network would help them get to South Korea. By the time a request for help reaches Peters, it is usually well