US embassy cable - 04SANTODOMINGO594

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