The terror-immigration connection

By Pauline Arrillaga and Olga R. Rodriguez

updated 4:54 p.m. ET July 3, 2005

TIJUANA, Mexico — The men flocked to the cafe under the sign with the cedar tree, symbol of their Mideast home. In this alien border land, it was the beacon that led to an Arab “brother” who would help them complete their journey from Lebanon into America.

They would come to find Salim Boughader Mucharrafille — the cafe owner who catered to some of Tijuana’s more affluent denizens, including workers at the U.S. consulate. His American customers were unaware that the boss of La Libanesa cafe ran a less reputable business on the side.

Until his arrest in December 2002, Boughader smuggled about 200 Lebanese compatriots into the United States, including sympathizers of Hezbollah, designated a terrorist organization by U.S. authorities. One client worked for a Hezbollah-owned television network, which glorifies suicide bombers and is itself on an American terror watch list.

'What’s the crime in bringing your brother?'
“If they had the cedar on their passport, you were going to help them,” Boughader told The Associated Press from a Mexico City prison, where he faces charges following a human-smuggling conviction in the United States. “What’s the crime in bringing your brother so that he can get out of a war zone?”

AP Salim Boughader in a photo provided by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

A report released by the Sept. 11 commission staff last year examining how terrorists travel the world cited Boughader as the only “human smuggler with suspected links to terrorists” convicted to date in the United States.

But he is not unique.

After Boughader was locked up, other smugglers continued to help Hezbollah-affiliated migrants in their effort to illicitly enter from Tijuana, a U.S. immigration investigator said in Mexican court documents obtained by the AP.

Another smuggling network that is controlled by Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebel group — a U.S.-designated terror organization — tried sneaking four Tigers over the California-Mexico border not long after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Steven Schultz, of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The four were caught.

Investigation finds many pipelines
An AP investigation found these are just some of the many pipelines in Latin America and Canada that have illegally channeled thousands of people into the United States from so-called “special-interest” countries — those identified by the U.S. government as sponsors or supporters of terrorism.

The AP reviewed hundreds of pages of court indictments, affidavits, congressional testimony and government reports, and conducted dozens of interviews in Mexico and the United States to determine how migrants from countries with terrorist ties were brought illegally to America — and how the smugglers they hired operated.

Many of the travelers, unassociated with any extremist group, genuinely came fleeing war or in search of work. But some, once in the United States, committed fraud to obtain Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses or false immigration documents, court records showed.

AP Mahmoud Youssef Kourani of Dearborn, Mich., in a photo released by the U.S. Marshals office.

One, Lebanese carpenter Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, admitted spending part of his time in the United States raising money to support Hezbollah — at least $40,000, according to an FBI affidavit.

Al-Qaida eyes borders
U.S. homeland security officials maintain they know of no cases of al-Qaida operatives using smuggling operations to enter over the northern or southern boundaries, though they warn that intelligence suggests the terror group is eyeing the borders as a way in.

“Several al-Qaida leaders believe operatives can pay their way into the country through Mexico,” Jim Loy, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told a congressional committee in February. Further, he said, “entrenched human smuggling networks and corruption in areas beyond our borders can be exploited by terrorist organizations.”

The Boughader case and others show just how easy it would be.

Smugglers employ recruiters and facilitators in such “special-interest” countries as Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Pakistan. One immigrant testified in a 2002 case about a “market of passports” in Iraq where individuals could illegally purchase travel documents.

'Special interest' smugglers
These “special-interest” smugglers use staging areas and transportation coordinators in such places as Quito, Ecuador; Lima, Peru; Cali, Colombia; and Guatemala City. They pay for foot guides, drivers and stash-house operators in Mexico and the United States.

They have moved people by plane — into suburban Washington, D.C., Florida, California. And they have crossed clients in vehicles or on foot into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California and over the Canadian border.

They have partnered with other smugglers transporting Mexican or Central American migrants.
“People from places in the Middle East will hear about who to go through, and they tend to be people from their same country, but once you get into the system we saw associations that really were driven by, ‘What’s the most effective way for me to move my product?”’ said Laura Ingersoll, an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C.

“A Mafia,” is how one of Boughader’s clients, Roland Nassib Maksoud, once described the business.

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