Families who pay for trips may be targeted

U.S. ENFORCEMENT

Families who pay for trips may be targeted
As part of a crackdown on smuggling operations, border officials may
prosecute families who conspire to bring loved ones to the United States.
Posted on Sat, Sep. 08, 2007
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other Homeland Security
agencies plan to step up the crackdown on smugglers and could target
migrant family members who pay for the trips for prosecution as
conspirators.

`THINK TWICE'

''I would caution family members who are contemplating having their
loved ones illegally enter the United States that they should think
twice,'' Andrew Corsini, assistant special agent in charge for U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Miami, said Friday.

Payments to smugglers, he said, are ``part of the criminal conspiracy.
It may make them subject to criminal prosecution . . . They put the
lives of their loved ones in the hands of ruthless criminals who are
only trying to make money.''

Corsini said Cuban migrant smugglers use go-fast boats, satellite
telephones and global positioning system devices to transport an
increasing number of passengers across the Florida Straits.

Each smuggling trip employs 20 people or more to find local families
willing to pay, arrange transportation and ferry the migrants to South
Florida.

An illegal voyage with 50 or 60 passengers could yield more than half a
million dollars, with exile families expected to pay between $7,000 and
$10,000 per migrant -- on delivery. If the migrants are interdicted,
their families don't pay, Corsini said. Crew members get about $100,000
per voyage, he said.

Corsini said law enforcement pressure on South Florida smugglers may be
forcing them to shift operations to Mexico, where the number of Cubans
arriving in the Yucatán Peninsula is rising.

He said each voyage is an elaborate mission that reaches out through
recruiters in the community to find out who wants to come to the United
States.

Other organizers find ''straw'' owners to lend or obtain boats, hire
crew members and arrange for other boats to refuel the smuggling vessel
at sea.

One person will forward or take the would-be migrants' list to Cuba and
someone there locates them and guides them to a staging area and on to a
barrier island off the Cuban coast.

Another goes out in a boat to rendezvous with the smuggling vessel and
guide it to the Cubans waiting to leave.

ALL ABOUT MONEY

''This is not a mom-and-pop operation,'' Corsini said. ``This is a
sophisticated group trying to bring people into this country and they're
paid well . . . It's purely how many people can we stuff on a boat and
can we make as much more in profit.''

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/story/229962.html