Cuban émigré Mercedes Morera Roche pleaded guilty in the USA of leading a gang of illegal trafficking of migrants from 2004 to 2011. She benefited from some of the 6.6 billion dollars these criminals move in the world.
Mercedes ran over the transit of migrants through Central America and Mexico, mostly Cubans coming from Ecuador, the only country that does not ask them a visa. She used to give them instructions, false identity documents, safe houses and transportation.
However, despite assurances they received from the dealer, the Ecuador-US route is fraught with danger. In El Salvador the Mara Salvatrucha is dedicated to capture illegal immigrants of any nationality. It is said that they have already kidnapped more than 22 000 people.
Cuban immigrants have lived very difficult situations also during their passing through Mexico. In 2008, armed groups attacked a bus of Chiapas detention center and took with them the 33 Cuban illegal immigrants it was carrying.
In 2010, Mexican authorities rescued six Cuban illegal immigrants who were held as hostages of the bands in Cancun. In the same city, the previous year another 14 Cubans had been abused and beaten in an abandoned house.
The number of Cubans who travel by land grew rapidly after approval by the United States of the “wet feet, dry feet” policy, which involves the return to Cuba of all rafters captured at sea by the Coast Guard of the United States
The capture of the rafts is massive so there is only the possibility of using speedboats from Miami. During the past decade, nearly 90 percent used the land route; last year, about 22,000 entered the US through the borders with Mexico and Canada.
The trip costs $ 10,000 per person and most of the traffic is funded by Cuban Americans. They pay to have their family arrive at the border and embrace the Adjustment Act, which since 1966 ensures residence to every Cuban that reaches American soil.
Double standards
Cuba Migration figures are the most publicized but they are not the only undertaking illegal trip to USA. Mexicans do so through their border in larger numbers while Dominicans get to the sea in their “dinghies” without anyone being interested in how many of these little boats sink each year.
In 2011 the number of people born in Cuba that were US residents reached the figure of 1,090,563, while the Mexicans were 11,691,632 and Salvadorans, from a nation with half the population of Cuba- reached the figure of 1,245,458 emigrants.
The anti-Castro Miami media talk about 2 million migrants but in reality what they do is inflate the figure by adding all residents of “Cuban origin” and including the children and grandchildren, all born in the USA
Cuban immigrants have always been politicized, presenting them as people fleeing communism and granting them refugee status in the United States despite the fact that 500,000 of these supposed “exiles” visit Cuba every year and nothing happens to them.
Washington deals with migration with double standards. It works on containment policies with other countries, collaborated with the Dominican government to create a media campaign with taped interviews of people who lost their relatives in the sea.
They did the same in Mexico with the release of a CD to local radio stations across the country entitled “Migracorridos”. The songs tell of the dangers and risks faced by Mexican illegal immigrants on their journey to America.
In the case of Cuba, however, they keep an Adjustment Act tempting Cubans to jump. The greatest benefits of this legislation are for those who do not have American visa, ie, those who come to the borders of the USA illegally
The opening of Cuba now allows citizens to travel freely, multiplying their chances of emigrating, but the only countries to open their doors wide are Ecuador and the United States, becoming the first a springboard to reach the second.
So, it is not surprising that increasing numbers of those who risk their lives, paying dealers as Mercedes Morera, hoping someday to enjoy the benefits that come from living in a developed country.
