For Cubans, a Twisting New Route to the U.S.
By MARC LACEY
CORTES, Cuba — Cubans are migrating to the United States in the greatest
numbers in over 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 United States Coast Guard.
American 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 brother Fidel last year. Cuban authorities contend the migration is
more economic than political, and is 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 repairman from
Havana, did recently to reach south Florida, which remains the goal for
most migrating Cubans.
It took Mr. 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.
"Its extremely dangerous," Mr. 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, though
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 United States.
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 Yucatán. The same
place that Cubans are coming ashore is crisscrossed by narcotics
traffickers and there is fear that the two businesses could merge.
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 farther south in Central America.
Manuel Aguilera de la Paz, Cuba's ambassador to Mexico, told reporters
recently that migration is at the top of the agenda as Mexico and Cuba
seek to improve strained relations that prompted the two countries to
briefly pull their ambassadors in 2004.
In Washington, Thomas Shannon, the deputy secretary of state for Western
Hemisphere affairs, has expressed concern, as well. "There is some kind
of struggle going on among gangs," he said of the violence in Cancún,
calling the new route "a recent phenomenon."
The United States 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 migrants are in most cases fined and then released. They have 30
days to leave the country, plenty of time to find their way north.
The smuggling networks themselves have become more sophisticated. 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.
Safe houses have 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.
The kinds of craft being used are also a step up. The boats leaving Cuba
used to be the most ramshackle imaginable. They were inner tubes strung
together or rusted out vessels that were powered by car engines, oars or
even, in at least one case, a weed whacker.
While many, like Mr. Savater, the Havana repairman, still come that way,
for the right price Cubans nowadays can also 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.
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 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 Cortes, gesturing toward the west. "That's
the new way out."
The Cubans use loudspeakers 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 United States 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
Cortes, who was manning what looked like a lifeguard tower jacked up 30
feet for a better view. He had high-powered binoculars but a vast
stretch of coast to watch.
Farther west, at the smuggling hotspot of Cabo Frances, the army has set
up a base at the beach and strung a tree branch across the only entry
point with a small cardboard sign declaring it a military zone. Locals
have been told not to fish there anymore until the problem is under control.
Like so much else in United States-Cuban relations, migration is mired
in bad blood.
Cubans blame Washington for the exodus, saying that allowing Cubans who
arrive illegally in the United States to stay permanently provides an
incentive for people to risk their lives at sea. Cuban authorities
grumble as well that Washington issued only 15,000 of the 20,000 visas
it promised under a recent migration accord to allow Cubans to legally
leave.
The United States has a different view. American officials blame
government repression as the reason why people are willing to risk their
lives at sea. And they say that Cuban officials have not permitted the
United States Interest Section in Havana to fill all the positions there
that are needed to handle the paperwork.
In Mexico, there is acceptance of the arriving Cubans among coastal
residents, mixed with a tinge of resentment. "It's sad that a Mexican
can't enter the U.S. if they reach the border and a Cuban can," said
Alba Rios, a resident of Isla Mujeres who has noticed significant
numbers of Miami Cubans arriving on the island to aid with the migrant flow.
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 United States Border Patrol agents about the horrors they
have suffered in Havana.
Elisabeth Malkin contributed reporting from Mexico City.
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