Thread: Rush of Cuban migrants use Mexican routes to U.S.

Rush of Cuban migrants use Mexican routes to U.S.
By Marc Lacey

Monday, October 15, 2007
CORTÉS, Cuba: Cubans are migrating to the United States in the greatest numbers in more than a decade, and for most of them the new way to get north is first to head west - to Mexico - in a convoluted route that avoids the U.S. Coast Guard.

U.S. officials say the spike in migration is due to a lack of hope for change on the island, since Raúl Castro took over as president from his other brother Fidel last year. The Cuban authorities contend the migration is more economic than political, fueled by Washington's policy of rewarding Cubans who enter the United States illegally.

In fact, unlike Mexicans, Central Americans and others heading to the United States' southwest border, the Cubans do not have to sneak across. They just walk right up to United States authorities at the border, relying on Washington's so-called wet foot/dry foot policy, which gives Cubans the ability to become permanent residents if they can only reach American soil.

That is what José Luis Savater, 45, a refrigerator repair man from Havana did recently to reach south Florida, which remains the goal for most migrating Cubans.

It took Savater almost four days to reach the Mexican island of Isla Mujeres in a rickety boat made from wood, fiberglass and aluminum, powered by a jerry-rigged motor used for irrigating fields. The 15 men and one woman with him took turns bailing.

"It's extremely dangerous," Savater recounted in a recent interview from Cancún. "I saw myself dead. I suffered a lot." But his next step was far easier: a flight to the United States-Mexican border, with the help of money wired from relatives in south Florida.

Some American officials are calling this new approach - Cubans strolling up to desert border stations and seeking political asylum - dusty foot.

Statistics make clear that Cubans now believe the route, although considerably longer, boosts their odds of reaching Miami. Almost twice as many Cubans - 11,487 - used it as in 2005.

By comparison, during the same time, the coast guard intercepted just 2,861 Cubans crossing the Florida Straits, and 4,825 others eluded American authorities and the applied for political asylum in the United States, according to the coast guard.

The figures indicate a spike in migration from the island, which in fiscal 2007 was at its highest level since 35,000 Cubans left in a mass exodus in 1994.

"The reason why people are willing to risk their lives to leave Cuba is the lack of hope and expectations," Sean Murphy, the U.S. Consul General in Havana, told reporters earlier this month.

The new route is not just diverting migrants. Smugglers are shifting too, resulting in turf battles that are believed to be behind a string of murders in recent months of Cuban nationals in the Yucatan. The same place that Cubans are coming ashore is criss-crossed by narcotics traffickers and there is fear that the two businesses could merge.

Safe houses have also been set up along the Mexican coast to help the Cubans elude Mexican authorities and avoid paying the fine. One Cuban who made it to Mexico said he was impressed by the organization of it all. Cuban rice and beans awaited him upon arrival in Mexico. Within days, he was off to the Texas border with instructions with what he should say to quickly enter the United States.

Some Mexicans are even getting ideas from the Cubans. A trade is developing in Cuban identity documents and some savvy Mexican migrants are now practicing Cuban accents and rehearsing dramatic stories they intend to tell U.S. Border Patrol agents about the horrors they have suffered in Havana.

Altogether, the issue has attracted the attention of officials from throughout the region, since Cubans sometimes go off track and land on other Caribbean islands or further south in Central America.

The coast guard's aggressive patrols off the Florida Straight prompted the new route, most agree. The coast guard returns migrants who are caught at sea to Cuba, where authorities have said they will not take retribution against them.

"It's practically Mission Impossible to go directly to Miami," said an American official who is tracking the issue but who did not have approval to speak on the record about it.

In Mexico, however, the coast is far more loosely patrolled and, some say, local authorities are more likely to look the other way for a bribe.

The rocky eastern shore of Isla Mujeres, a speck of an island near the resort town of Cancún, is a popular landing spot. Despite the presence of a Mexican Navy post there, Cuban boats come ashore regularly.

"We're looking for Colombian drug dealers, not Cubans," said a Mexican Navy officer who was on a nighttime watch on a bluff that is the island's highest point.

When the navy does intercept vessels, mostly those in distress, they are escorted ashore. The traffickers are arrested and their boats seized. But the migrants themselves are in most cases fined and then released. They have 30 days to leave the country, plenty of time to find their way north.

That is not the only new dynamic in Cuban migration. The boats leaving island used to be the most ramshackle of crafts imaginable. They were inner tubes strung together or rusted out vessels that were powered by car engines, oars or even, in one case, a weed whacker.

But nowadays Cubans are more likely to climb aboard a sleek modern boat with three 275-horsepower outboard motors hanging from the back.

"They look like they can fly," said a fisherman on Cuba's southwestern coast who has spotted the vessels and spoke of them with a jealous look in his eye.

"People want a more secure way out and they are turning to smugglers," said Shannon, the diplomat.

The smugglers operate out of Miami, with representatives on the coasts of Cuba and Mexico, experts say. They carry satellite telephones so the transfers are done with military-like precision.

The boats swoop in to a prearranged spot on the Cuban coast line, and quickly load and leave, with the price for the express service exceeding $10,000 a head in many cases. Some are allowed aboard without paying the full price, Cubans with knowledge of the business say, but they have to commit to joining the smuggling network and return to pick up more migrants.

Cuban authorities are usually caught flatfooted. They have set up military checkpoints along the coast and banned locals from fishing on some stretches of beach to get a handle on the new escape routes. But the flow continues, mostly from remote beaches on the western half of the island.

"Mexico is that way," said a fisherman pulling his boat ashore in a popular smuggling spot near Cortés, gesturing toward the west. "That's the new way out."

The Cubans use loud speakers to warn of the dangers of the voyage and urge everyone to come back. But the boats rarely, if ever, do. If the boat is heading to Florida, the Cuban authorities radio information to the U.S. Coast Guard. If it is heading to Mexico, they throw up their arms.

"I'm on the lookout," said a young Cuban Coast Guard recruit outside Cortés, who was manning what looked like a lifeguard tower jacked up for a better view. He had high-powered binoculars but a vast stretch of coast to watch.

Elisabeth Malkin contributed reporting from Mexico City.

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I think if we are ever to stop this mass invasion, it's going to take the U.S. military. I'm not sure our Border Patrol, such as it is right now, is up to this task. It just gets worse every day.

Our policy towards Cuba is, IMO, screwed up. We should lift the embargo and simultaneously suspend any further immigration of Cubans.