Pipelines Send Illegal Immigrants to U.S.

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) --

The men flocked to the cafe under the sign with the cedar tree, symbol of their Mideast home. Here, in this alien border land, it was the beacon that led to an Arab "brother" who would help them complete their journey from Lebanon into America...

Until his arrest in December 2002, Boughader smuggled about 200 Lebanese compatriots into the United States, including sympathizers of Hezbollah, designated a terrorist organization by U.S. authorities. One client, Boughader said, worked for a Hezbollah-owned television network, which glorifies suicide bombers and is itself on an American terror watch list....

After Boughader was locked up, other smugglers operating in Lebanon, Mexico and the United States continued to help Hezbollah-affiliated migrants in their effort to illicitly enter from Tijuana, a U.S. immigration investigator said in Mexican court documents obtained by the AP.

Another smuggling network that is controlled by Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebel group — a U.S.-designated terror organization — tried sneaking four Tigers over the California-Mexico border en route to Canada not long after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigator Steven Schultz said. The four were caught along with 17 other Sri Lankans, all posing as Mexicans, attempting to enter ports at San Ysidro and Otay Mesa.

An AP investigation found these are just some of the many pipelines in Central and South America, Mexico and Canada that have illegally channeled thousands of people into the United States from so-called "special-interest" countries — those identified by the U.S. government as sponsors or supporters of terrorism.

Even when caught, illegal immigrants from those countries and other nations are sometimes released while awaiting deportation hearings, then miss those court dates, according to the AP's investigation, which also documented deep concerns about security threats along the lightly patrolled, 4,000-mile U.S.-Canada border....

At least one al-Qaida-linked man smuggled himself over the border. Nabil al-Marabh, a now-deported Syrian citizen once No. 27 on the FBI's list of terror suspects and accused by Canadian authorities of having connections to Osama bin Laden's network, was caught sneaking from Canada into New York in the back of a tractor-trailer in June 2001 with a fake Canadian passport.

"Several al-Qaida leaders believe operatives can pay their way into the country through Mexico and also believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry," Jim Loy, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told a congressional committee in February. Further, he said, "entrenched human smuggling networks and corruption in areas beyond our borders can be exploited by terrorist organizations."...

"Today they could be smuggling people, tomorrow weapons," said John Torres, deputy assistant director for smuggling and public safety investigations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. "The vulnerability there is a criminal or terrorist organization could take advantage of that existing infrastructure."...

These smugglers use staging areas and transportation coordinators in such places as Quito, Ecuador; Lima, Peru; Cali, Colombia; and Guatemala City...

They have moved people by plane — into suburban Washington, D.C., Florida, California. And they have crossed clients in vehicles or on foot into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California and over the Canadian border, then helped deliver them to destinations across America.

They have partnered with other smugglers transporting Mexican or Central American migrants, sometimes swapping clients and transferring immigrants from "special-interest" countries and other migrants in the same loads....

Central and South America are popular transit points because of their proximity to the United States and the relative ease with which migrants from countries with terrorist ties can obtain tourist visas there — either legally or through bribery...

Boughader's clients told U.S. and Mexican investigators they paid thousands of dollars to obtain fraudulent visas from Mexico's consular office in Beirut....

In May, the former director of immigration in Honduras was arrested, accused of selling hundreds of Honduran passports to migrants from Lebanon, China, Cuba and Colombia — possibly to aid their entry into the United States...

Maximiano Ramos, a former Los Angeles supervisor with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, admitted taking $12,500 to smuggle immigrants from the Philippines, home of the al-Qaida-linked militant group Abu Sayyaf....

Intelligence suggests that since 1999 human smugglers have facilitated the travel of terrorists associated with more than a dozen extremist groups, according to the Sept. 11 commission's terrorist travel report Kephart helped write. Prior to Sept. 11, al-Qaida employed smugglers to get jihad recruits into Afghanistan for training, the report said....

Kourani, who helped raise donations for Hezbollah, entered the United States via the Lebanon-Tijuana pipeline, paying $3,000 in Beirut to get a Mexican visa, according to federal court documents. On Feb. 4, 2001, he and another man were smuggled into California in the hidden compartment of a vehicle....

Desert Invasion - U.S.

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