Gangs smuggling Cubans into US via Mexico route

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Gangs smuggling Cubans into US via Mexico route

`DRY FOOT': More Cubans are taking the risky trip by boat to Mexico and then traveling on land to the US border, where they are welcomed in under US law

AP, HAVANA
Friday, Aug 03, 2007, Page 7

The vast majority of Cubans sneaking off the island now enter the US through Mexico after US relatives pay thousands of dollars to organized crime networks that scoop them off Cuba's westernmost tip in souped-up speedboats.

The Mexico route is more dangerous than a direct, 145km voyage from Cuba to Florida, but there is less chance the US Coast Guard will intervene. Nearly 90 percent of all undocumented Cubans who make it to the US now come overland rather than reaching US shores by boat, US Customs and Border Protection say.

From the Mexican coast, Cubans then travel up to the US border, where unlike other undocumented migrants, they are welcomed in under US law.

Mexico, already struggling against organized crime, is paying the price for the migration shift, especially in Cancun, the nation's glittering Caribbean getaway. On Monday, investigators there found the body of a Cuban-American from Miami, Luis Lazaro Lara Morejon, handcuffed and with duct tape over his eyes. He had been shot 10 times, obliterating his face.

Days earlier, authorities had arrested at least eight people on suspicion of smuggling Cubans to Mexico, including six Cubans with US residency or citizenship who had just been interviewed by US authorities. Lara had connections to the suspects, Mexican officials say.



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