DOMINICAN ILLEGALS: USDOJ AND USCG ACTION REQUEST

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 SANTO DOMINGO 000594

SIPDIS

STATE FOR INL/C, INL/LP, INR/IAA, PM/PPA, PRM/ENA, WHA/PPC,
AND WHA/CAR
JUSTICE FOR OIA, AFMLS, AND NDDS
JUSTICE PLEASE PASS U.S. ATTORNEY SAN JUAN
TREASURY FOR FINCEN
DEA FOR OFI/MARRERO

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: SNAR SMIG KJUS EWWT DR
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN ILLEGALS: USDOJ AND USCG ACTION REQUEST

REF: A. IIR 6 827 0090 03

B. 03 SANTO DOMINGO 5691

C. IIR 6 827 0009 04

D. IIR 6 827 0021 04

E. 03 SANTO DOMINGO 7304


1. SUMMARY AND ACTION REQUEST: This interagency message
presents the unified views of cognizant agencies at Embassy
Santo Domingo on the current surge of illegal migrant travel
from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico. Present efforts
by Dominican and American officials are inadequate to
counteract this trend. In Embassy's view, the only sure way
to stem the migrant flow is to provide negative consequences
for the smugglers. FOR U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE: Embassy
strongly urges that the U.S. Attorney's office in San Juan
give immediate high priority to prosecution of immigrant
smuggling cases. FOR U.S. COAST GUARD: Embassy requests
that Coast Guard cutters assigned to the Mona Passage be
equipped with the IDENT system or similar gear. See Comment,
paras. 12-14, for rationale.

BACKGROUND
--------------


2. A significant surge in illegal emigration from the
Dominican Republic followed the end of the 2003-04 holiday
period. The plunging peso and soaring prices for food, fuel,
and other necessities have driven many families to entrust
one or more members to the perils of the Mona Passage to
Puerto Rico. Embassy estimates from reports and field visits
that five to ten rickety homebuilt vessels (yolas) are
leaving Dominican beaches on any given night in January 2004,
each carrying between 30 and 100 passengers. During a recent
two-day period, American authorities intercepted five yolas
in the Mona and discovered eight more abandoned on Puerto
Rican shores.


3. Interviews with intercepted migrants indicate that
recently proposed changes in U.S. immigration law, which
would permit some illegal immigrants to regularize their work
status, may have contributed to the current surge. Migrant
smugglers usually exploit rumors of changes in U.S.
immigration law to persuade potential customers that the time
is right to emigrate.

THE GROWING PROBLEM
--------------


4. Measuring a clandestine migrant population is always a
challenge. However, indications are that the best combined
efforts of American and Dominican authorities are
intercepting about half the illegal migration traffic headed
toward Puerto Rico. Extrapolation from recent (and possibly
optimistic) U.S. Coast Guard estimates places the January
2004 projected total flow at about 2500 migrants, of which
perhaps 1000 will land and not be apprehended. NOTE: "Total
flow" as defined by the Coast Guard includes 1) Coast Guard
interdictions, 2) other U.S. law enforcement agency
interdictions (Border Patrol, ICE),3) other country (e.g.
Bahamas) interdictions, 4) successful landings. This "floor"
figure does not include 1) migrants who perish at sea, 2)
successful landings we never learn about. The "total flow"
number permits year-to-year comparisons but does not reflect
total migration attempts. END NOTE.


5. In December 2003, a more typical month, Dominican Navy
Intelligence reported arrests of 241 nationals, 30
foreigners, five yola captains, and five trip organizers,
plus 173 illegals received from the U.S. Coast Guard, for a
total of 454 persons and 33 vessels intercepted. During all
of 2003, the Dominican Navy seized 421 vessels and detained
5,096 persons. Virtually all of those persons were quickly
released, due to lack of judicial and political interest in
these cases, the perception of victimless crime, and the fact
that trip organizers and captains are rarely identified by
their passengers. Several migrant smugglers have been
detained for several months by Dominican authorities, but
none has been convicted. Those few migrants possibly willing
to testify against the smugglers are often silenced by
threats or promises of another voyage for free before the
matter can be fully investigated, and Dominican legal
sanctions for smuggling are few when drugs are not involved.


6. U.S. Coast Guard officers report that an increasing
number of voyagers are paying for their trips by carrying
drugs. Evidence of such activity is difficult to gather in
the confusion of a chase at sea, but ion scans of some yolas
have shown presence of drug residue. Another trend is that
Coast Guard boarding parties are now encountering refusals to
stop and even thrown rocks, brought on board for that
purpose. High-powered boats from Puerto Rico also offer
clandestine ferry service for high-paying illegal migrants,
typically detouring far north of the Mona to evade the Coast
Guard and landing their passengers east of San Juan.


7. Most of the Dominican yola passengers, typically between
18 and 40 years of age, have paid a few hundred to a thousand
dollars for their voyage. A few of those are gang members
previously deported from the U.S. after serving their jail
terms. Once a boatload reaches a Puerto Rican beach, the
occupants scatter, making interdiction difficult. Cubans,
assured of an asylum hearing once their feet touch American
soil, pay about three times the Dominican price for their
voyage. Some migrants, unable to pay the fees up front, work
off their debts in various unpleasant ways, including
prostitution and gang membership. Exotic aliens, such as
Chinese, may have paid up to ten times the Cuban price. The
diversity of nationalities using routes through the Dominican
Republic raises concern that terrorist organizations may do
the same. Highly sophisticated smuggling rings offer their
services to those who can pay their fat fees. Regardless of
their motives and ability to pay, the ultimate destination of
nearly all intending migrants is the United States. And of
those intercepted en route, a large percentage try again, and
again, until they succeed.

DOMINICAN COUNTERMEASURES
--------------


8. The Dominican Navy is America's best ally in the fight
against illegal migrant traffic. The Navy routinely disrupts
yola departures along the nation's beaches, at an average
rate of 35 per month during 2003. Shore patrols from the
Navy's many coastal outposts are credited with most of the
successful interceptions. The Navy shore patrols also seize
fuel, motors, and other equipment necessary to a successful
crossing. The poorly educated men who serve in the run-down
coastal stations, built around the island at twenty-kilometer
intervals during the Trujillo period, are underpaid and,
these days, often unpaid. They typically live without
electricity or proper sanitation, preparing their rice and
beans over a back yard fire when there is no gas for the
stove. They patrol on foot at night for lack of motorized
transport, usually with only a shotgun to enforce a squad's
authority.


9. The Dominican Navy has assisted U.S. Coast Guard cutters
by ferrying intercepted migrants back to the Dominican
Republic. The Navy normally operates on a shoestring budget,
further pinched at present by the government's dire economic
situation, and fuel for such operations is scarce. At the
present moment, NAS and MAAG have arranged to pay for fuel
and rations in support of Operation Congri, in which
Dominican patrol craft are patrolling the Mona Passage in
rotation, under U.S. Coast Guard operational control. As NAS
funds are not normally spent on fuel for military operations
of other nations, Dominican cooperation in this operation
will be limited to two weeks. During the first week of
Operation Congri, just completed, a Dominican patrol ship
intercepted two yolas and repatriated the passengers, saving
the U.S. cutter on the Mona station a lengthy detour to La
Romana.


10. The Dominican Government has assisted with the illegal
migration problem in other ways. In May 2003 the Embassy
team negotiated the signing of a landmark agreement for
maritime migration enforcement, the first of its kind in the
region. In that agreement the Dominican Government allowed
overflight and immediate repatriation of migrants caught at
sea, including third party nationals. Without that
agreement, the current difficulties of the U.S. Coast Guard
and Border Patrol would be multiplied.

EMBASSY COUNTERMEASURES
--------------


11. During 2003, Embassy Santo Domingo provided the
Dominican Navy with three new Zodiac patrol boats and
equipped the Trafficking In Persons unit of the National
Police with computers to keep track of their cases. As
discussed above, Embassy is currently providing fuel and
rations for Dominican participation with the U.S. Coast Guard
in Operation Congri. To help meet the challenge of the
current migration surge, the Embassy will soon co-sponsor
with Dominican civil society, the private sector, and
international organizations an intensive public information
campaign emphasizing the hazards of yola travel, the
untrustworthy nature of smugglers, and the difficulties of
life as an illegal immigrant in the United States. To
supplement meager Dominican detection resources, the Embassy
will request Coast Guard consideration of assigning
additional resources to the Mona as well as temporary use of
the C-26 aerial sensing platform based in Barbados. However,
none of these efforts is expected to slow the flow of
intending migrants in any dramatic measure.

COMMENT
--------------


12. Embassy's considered view is that the only sure way to
stem the migrant flow is to provide negative consequences for
the smugglers. While there are Dominican laws against human
smuggling, the Dominican justice system is either unwilling
or unable to enforce them. American law provides penalties,
but to Embassy's knowledge, no maritime migrant smuggler has
been convicted in Puerto Rico in recent history. The
difficulties of obtaining evidence and ensuring testimony
make such cases far more troublesome to prosecute than drug
smuggling cases. However, no migrant smuggler has reason at
this point to fear the consequences of his actions. Until
such consequences are vigorously applied in the U.S., the
flow of human contraband across the Mona Passage will
continue. The USG rightly continues to threaten the
Dominican Republic with Category 3 Trafficking In Persons
status, but the absence of USG convictions for migrant
smuggling seems to undermine that threat.


13. Negative consequences must also extend to the migrants
themselves. Embassy understands there are plans to place
IDENT fingerprinting and photography systems on Coast Guard
cutters in the Mona Passage. Such systems could defeat the
false identities typically offered by detained migrants and
could provide useful information to consular sections
receiving applications from former would-be illegals. IDENT
could also help identify repeat offenders and aid
investigations and intelligence activities.


14. Embassy has the impression that interagency coordination
in Puerto Rico to date has not resulted in maritime migrant
smuggling convictions. We believe that the only effective
way to plug this hole in our homeland security is to
implement consequences for migrant smugglers and their
passengers in the United States. To achieve these ends,
Embassy offers full cooperation and all appropriate support
within its resources.
HERTELL