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| Immigrants from across the globe sneak thru Mexico to USA |
| 2004-08-08 |
| We knew this would happen at greater frequency sooner or later. Long article that will make your hair stand on end. nottimes for user name and pw It's 6 p.m., the busiest time of night during the busiest time of the year at Benito Juärez International Airport. The migration supervisor, Alberto Pliego, calls it Jumbo Hour... "A migrant who makes it past the airport today,'' Mr. Pliego said, "will be in Tijuana tomorrow, and probably in Chicago the day after that."Migrant smugglers - whose business is worth an estimated $1 billion in this hemisphere, second in profits to drugs - do a brisk business at the airport, which receives about 10,000 passengers each day. The Mexican authorities report that a surging number of migrants from all around the world are traveling through Mexico to get to the United States. So far this year, Mexico has detained nearly 112,000 illegal migrants, compared with 150,000 in all of 2001. Authorities said they expected total detentions for this year to reach 200,000. The Mexicans are under tough pressure from the United States, which since Sept. 11 has feared that global terrorists could easily slip into Mexico and then cross into the United States. The overwhelming majority of those detained are from Central and South America, authorities report. But there are also increasing numbers from as far away as Pakistan, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, Ethiopia and China. ...Migrants' passage through Mexico, while not new, is surging. The country's border with the United States has long made it a natural transshipment point for all kinds of illegal trafficking including drugs, guns and migrants. |
| Posted by:rex |