Thread: How Insecure U.S. Mexican Border Is

This is frightening to think how unsecure the Mexican/U.S. border is. If Cuban smugglers as mentioned in this article and getting through and Russian organized crime groups use it to bring in women for the sex trade then who knows who else is coming in.
Then you have Cuban migrants using forged or stolen passports and come here using them also alarming.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breakin ... 29832.html

Cuban migration on the rise
Posted on Fri, Sep. 07, 2007
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com
After her 2-year-old was born, Damarys Reyes and her friend Manuel Cabrera talked often about leaving Havana for Miami on a boat -- but it was only when the ailing Fidel Castro announced last year that he was ''temporarily'' ceding power to his younger brother Raúl that they made their fateful decision.

''When Fidel made the announcement, it hit me that things were only going to get worse, that it was time to leave,'' Reyes, 22, said this week during a visit to a migrant assistance office in Miami Springs -- nine months after arriving in South Florida with Cabrera and 27 other Cuban migrants.

South Florida migrant aid offices are suddenly much busier. More Cubans, frustrated by long waiting lists for visas, are arriving illegally aboard boats, buses and planes. Nationally, 16,100 undocumented Cubans have arrived in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 -- 1,749 more than last year.

The U.S. Coast Guard has caught 2,435 Cubans in the Florida Straits this year -- exceeding interdictions for all of 2006.

Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection also disclosed figures showing an overall increase in Cuban migrant arrivals on South Florida shores and at border entry points nationally and international airports -- exceeding arrivals during a similar period last year.

Cubans attempting to reach the United States without visas generally make the voyage by boat -- either crossing the Florida Straits or taking alternate routes such as through the Mexican resorts of Cancún and Isla Mujeres. Those eventually show up at the Mexico-U.S. border. Many others are arriving in Miami on flights from Europe and South America carrying forged or stolen passports.

Whether Fidel Castro's departure from Cuban affairs on July 31, 2006, has played a role in the spike in migrants remains unclear. The Cuban government says the U.S. government has not honored an agreement to grant 20,000 visas to Cubans annually.

REASONS FOR LEAVING

Recently arrived Cubans interviewed this week at the Catholic Charities Legal Services offices in Miami and Miami Springs said the leadership change in Cuba was a factor -- but not the only reason. ''With or without Fidel, things in Cuba are deteriorating,'' said Cabrera, 34.

A barber by trade, Cabrera said he often sold contraband goods on the streets.

''It was a struggle all the time, just to make enough money to buy the necessities of life, like food,'' he said while waiting with Reyes and her toddler, Osniel, at the Miami Springs office. The office helps Cubans obtain work permits and eventually green cards.

Cabrera said what propelled him to leave was ''harassment'' by Havana police who arrested him frequently for selling cigarettes and matches on the streets without a permit.

'They accused me of not having a proper job. They would ask me, `How do you make a living?' and I would jokingly answer 'I live off of the air -- my father makes balloons, my mother fills them with air and I sell them on the street, because there was nothing else in Cuba,' '' Cabrera said. He added that a policeman once hit him in the face when he told his balloon joke.

Although the Coast Guard says Cuban migrants are increasingly arriving aboard smugglers' go-fast boats, Cabrera said his voyage was on a homemade boat that made landfall on Florida's southwest coast near Naples.

Reyes said she left Osniel behind to make the trip with Cabrera and the others. Osniel was brought by another group of migrants that landed in South Florida a few days ago, she said.

''I wanted to give him a future in a country where there would be opportunities,'' she said, as she held a sleeping Osniel. ``In Cuba, there would not have been a future for him.''

Abel Hernández, a neighbor of Cabrera's and fellow barber who joined the Naples voyage, said, ``Lack of future, lack of hope, lack of freedom, all those things are what caused me to leave.''

Hernández, 28, said he was earning 148 pesos a month, about $5. ``Everybody is in the same circumstance, even professionals. They end up working in the fields because there are no jobs, or they get sent abroad on international missions.''

Luis Torres, 33, said freedom, rather than money, was the issue for him. ''I was a doctor in Cuba, and I left not because there was not enough money to be made, but because there was no freedom and no prospects of freedom,'' Torres said. He fled Cuba by boat to the United States more than a year ago, he said, because the Cuban government refused to give him permission to leave even after he secured a visa to resettle in a third country.

According to Border Patrol figures, the number of Cuban migrant landings in South Florida so far this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, have reached 3,625 -- exceeding by 549 people the number of migrant landings for all of fiscal year 2006.

Increased patrolling by the Coast Guard has shifted a lot of migrant traffic to alternate routes -- particularly Cancún and Isla Mujeres.

That's why Customs and Border Protection figures show a majority of Cuban migrants now arriving via the Mexican border.

Some Cuban migrants say they are heading across the Yucatán Channel instead of the Florida Straits because Cuba's southern coast, where Mexico-bound trips originate, is less patrolled by Cuban border guards than the northern coast -- launching site for South Florida-bound voyages.

''It's much easier to leave from the south coast than the north coast,'' said Elixander Valladares, 26, whose migrant group landed in Isla Mujeres in March 2005. He now works in construction in Allentown, Pa.

William Mujica, 33, arrived in South Florida three months ago after landing on the Yucatán Peninsula and making his way through Mexico to San Ysidro, Calif.

''Many people want to leave Cuba right now,'' said Mujica, who was at the Catholic Charities downtown Miami office Thursday to pick up a parole document. ``There's uncertainty.''

Although Cuban migrants interviewed for this article insisted they did not use smugglers, Coast Guard officials said a majority of Cuban migrants now arrive or attempt to arrive aboard smugglers' ''go-fast'' boats at $7,000 to $10,000 per person.

13 BOATS SEIZED

Since Aug. 30, Coast Guard units interdicted or disrupted 18 migrant smuggling operations in the Florida Straits, picking up 195 Cubans, detaining 33 suspected smugglers and seizing 13 go-fast boats worth about $200,000.

''That statistic clearly demonstrates to anyone that organized crime is behind migrant smuggling and that criminals are profiting by exploiting Cuban migrants and their families,'' said Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Chris O'Neil.

We know if the promise comes true on 9/11/2007 to bomb places in the United States we know that they came through the border. Afterall they have caught some of them. All we can do now is hold our breaths. We know that anyone can get in.