BEIJING, China, May 20 -- BEIJING, May 20 (UPI) -- People who live in poor villages near the city's edge must show passes to enter their neighborhoods. The rule, enacted last month, is part of a Chinese government initiative to create closed, self-managing villages for immigrants who left their homes in rural China to find work in the Beijing.

The government built walls and gates around the villages, added sentry boxes and guards and demanded that each resident hold an official pass in an effort to tackle high crime rates in the villages, guards at the Shoubao Zhuang village said.

“Because it is hard to manage the immigrant population, there was a high crime rate before,” one guard said. “This month, it is much slower.”

The villages flank Beijing, in areas that were rural several years ago but are now part of the city’s outskirts. Because rent is cheap, many immigrants live in the villages, where they outnumber native Beijingers. The standard of living in the villages is similar to that of the countryside, prompting many to call the villages “slums.”

In the Sanyu village, all entrances except the front entrance are only open between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m., and guards patrol the entire area. A new Village Comprehensive Control Centre has several departments, including a Police Service Office, Immigrant Population Office and Patrol Office.

Residents must apply for passes in the Village Comprehensive Center. To get a pass, they are required to have a Temporary Residential Permit, their landlord’s ID number and other information. Each pass includes a photo, ID number and other resident information.

Reporters are barred from freely interviewing people in the villages. They are required to get a permit through the Village Comprehensive Control Center before conducting any interview or taking any photographs.

The new requirements were first enacted in just a few villages. Nearly 100 other immigrant villages were expected to receive similar instructions this month, recent news reports indicate. At the Dabailou Village, a new Village Comprehensive Control Center has been built. Other villages are preparing for construction.

“It is an institution which puts more limits on the immigrant population," said one resident, who wished to remain anonymous. “It is not easy for everyone to get a pass. If you have no Temporary Residential Permit or your landlord's ID, it is impossible to get the pass.”

Shops and restaurants in the village are suffering because outsiders can no longer get through the village gates, said Zhang Yang, who lives outside the village gates.

“It limits the exchange of people who live in the village and ones who live outside,” he said. “It is not convenient for me to enter Shoubao Zhuang village to buy fruit.”

Some business owners are planning to move elsewhere, he said.

But some residents said the changes help them feel safer.

There are fewer fights breaking out in Shoubao Zhuang village, one fruit store owner said.

Jia Long, a village resident who fixes automated teller machines in a Beijing factory, said the changes don’t bother him.

“This new institution cannot influence my life a lot, since I stay in the factory almost all day,” he said. “I don’t care if it only demands me to show a pass when I enter.”

Long is from China’s rural Hebei Province.

It’s not the first time village residents have had to deal with gates, guards and passes, said Tian Sheng, an unemployed man who lives in Dabailou village.

“The first time was during SARS,” he said, referring to the respiratory illness outbreak in early this century. “The second time was during the 2008 Olympics. But now, it has become a routine situation.”

Immigration from rural areas to cities is a sensitive issue in China. The changes have caused fierce debate.

The institutions sacrifice freedom and communication in society, Peking University law

Professor Shen Kui wrote in a recent article for the New Century magazine. The government is more interested in control and management than service, he wrote.