More Cubans entering U.S. through Mexico

Mark Potter Correspondent • E-mail

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Along the Mexican border, at the busy U.S. Port of Entry here, Customs and  Border Protection (CBP) officers geared up recently for another long day of processing Cuban immigrants.

Waiting in the lobby were 11 exhausted Cuban men and women who had arrived overnight asking for political asylum in the United States. Included were two middle-aged Cuban doctors who are husband and wife. 

Each of them would be questioned, photographed and fingerprinted before being paroled into the country under a Cold War-era provision that grants Cubans special immigration privileges and relatively easy entry into the U.S. The screening process typically takes less than an hour.

Authorities say in the last two years they have seen a dramatic rise in the number of Cubans entering the U.S. through the Southwest border, particularly between Laredo and Brownsville, Texas.

In fiscal year 2007, CBP officials said, more than 11,000 Cubans immigrants were cleared into the U.S. through Texas alone, much more than in any other state, including Florida.

Law enforcement officials suspect most of these Cubans did not arrive at the border on their own.

"What we've seen is that the majority of these people that are coming through are dealing with some type of smuggling operation," said Michael Freeman, the CBP's Brownsville Port Director. "This is definitely a coordinated effort."

A shift in smuggling routes
For years, Miami-based smugglers have used speed boats with GPS navigation systems, satellite phones and powerful, but quiet, four-stroke engines to sneak into Cuba under cover of darkness, pick up passengers, and bring them to South Florida, where many Cuban-American families finance these illegal and dangerous trips at a cost of $8,000 to $10,000 per person.

But, authorities said, increased patrols by the U.S. Coast Guard in the Florida Straits, and tougher federal prosecutions of smugglers have caused most of the human trafficking groups to shift their operations through Mexico, where there are fewer obstacles. Many boats now drop off their Cuban passengers at marinas and desolate beaches along the Yucatan Peninsula.

The 140-mile distance from Cuba to Mexico is only a little longer than the route to Florida.

The biggest difference is that Cuban passengers arriving in the Yucatan Peninsula must also endure a long voyage by land north toward the U.S. border. 

Law enforcement officials believe most of the trips are still coordinated by arrangers in Miami, who often supply the speedboats, and pay Mexican traffickers to hire local boat drivers and to organize the trips through Mexico.

It's widely suspected that many of these smugglers use the same routes and personnel as the illicit drug trade.

"All they care about is the money. They don't care about the human cargo that they have," said Thomas Winkowski, CBP Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Field Operations. "It's a very, very dangerous business, and we do not encourage anyone to take to the high seas with this type of organization."

One woman's terrifying journey
Arriving in Miami recently, after a harrowing trip from Cuba through Mexico, was a young woman who said she would never recommend the trip for anyone. "It's a risk, you risk your life," she said.

The woman said she was recruited for the trip by fellow Cubans, and was instructed to go to a park in a town near Havana, where she and others were put on a bus.

From there they were driven west, and then walked for miles, she said, through thick underbrush and mangrove trees until they reached a deserted beach. In the middle of the night, she and 37 other people waded in water up to their chests and boarded a boat driven by Mexicans.

The trip to the Yucatan Peninsula was terrifying, she said, with water pouring into the boat, and gasoline containers spilling on the deck. After outrunning a Cuban Coast Guard patrol boat, she said, the smuggling boat sped west in rough seas. "That part is very ugly. Everybody's really scared, children, men and women, all scared." For most of the trip she suffered from extreme seasickness. 

After arriving in Mexico, she said, she was held in a house in Cancun, while the smugglers repeatedly called her family in Miami demanding a $10,000 payment for the illegal trip. "They are calling your family constantly, trying to get more money out of them, basically creating a scare," she said.

After her family finally wired a partial payment to the smugglers, she said she was driven to the city of Merida, then put on a plane to Matamoros.  "Our tickets were already taken care of.  We were given a number, and with that number we boarded the plane.  Nobody asked for our identification."

In Matamoros she had to pay a driver to take her to the border town of Reynosa.  Along the way, she said, she was stopped twice by Mexican immigration authorities. "They started yelling at us that they were going to jail and deport us, and they scared us," she said.

With the little money she had left, the woman said she bribed the officers. "The first time they asked for money, we gave them $200." After the second stop, the cost of freedom was a bit higher. "They took $300, and let us go on" she said. From there, she walked to the port of entry at McAllen, Texas, and was admitted into the United States.

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