Cuban Refugees entering US via Mexico
In 2007, 11,126 used Mexican route, compared to1,055 who landed in Miami area.
ISLA MUJERES, Mexico — On the night Lazaro Mendez
got an alert that his boat had been stolen from the Florida Keys, he was
swept up in a new chapter of the Cuban boat people drama.
Grabbing
a laptop computer that tracked the fishing boat’s position by satellite,
he watched as it stopped for refueling at sea, then shot off toward Cuba
— the latest in a swarm of thefts of Florida boats prized by smugglers
for their speed.
Mendez, a Cuban-American and a popular Miami radio
personality known as “DJ Laz,” set out to get his boat back, succeeded,
and even came face to face with the men who stole it. But it was just
the tiniest of setbacks for a human-trafficking industry that is
thriving off the Cuban exodus.
Because it has become so hard to dodge the U.S.
Coast Guard and reach Florida to qualify for U.S. residency, Cuban
migrants in recent years have been heading for Mexico, then overland to
Texas. Last year 11,126 used that route, compared to just 1,055 who
landed in the Miami area, according to the Department of Homeland
Security.
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said on
Sunday that Mexico and Cuba have agreed to return Cubans reaching
Mexican shores illegally to the island.
Mexican officials would not comment on the
agreement, which Perez Roque said was to be signed on Monday.
But Mexico currently catches only about one tenth of
the Cubans landing here, and few resist because they’re confident
they’ll be released. If Mexico begins deportations, many Cubans — or
their smugglers — might put up stiffer resistance.
Thefts of boats for smuggling are so frequent that
some insurance companies require Florida owners to equip their boats
with GPS — satellite tracking systems. That’s how Mendez discovered his
cherished Tranquility was stolen — the system alerted him by cell phone
and updated its location every 15 minutes.
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