Border Patrol agent Eduardo Olmos walks near the secondary fence separating Tijuana, Mexico, background, and San Diego in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
By Ritika Gupta | Tuesday, 11 Oct 2016 12:27 PM
Government officials from Mexico are quietly paying to help thousands of Haitians who are living illegally in the United States, according to an internal Homeland Security document, The Washington Times reported.
The document also details the route taken by immigrants, thousands of dollars paid to human smugglers along the way, and also highlights the role of the neighboring governments of the U.S.
Over the past year, about 6,000 Haitians reached the San Diego border while 2,600 waited in northern Mexico as of last week, with 3,500 others in Panama, the documents revealed.
The report, which was accessed by California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, stated that the migrants were shelling out at least $2,350 to be illegally brought into the U.S. from South America.
"Haitians have forged a dangerous and clandestine new path to get to the United States," the document said.
It maps out the route, details of the prices paid to smugglers, bus tickets and also to agents who help them obtain transit documents.
The entire journey, which takes about four months, has 11 countries in its route, with the trek beginning from Brazil and covering over 7,100-miles, crossing west coast of South America and Central America.
The document also elaborated that some countries were more vigilant than the others, hence the smuggling charges went up to as much as $1,000. Smugglers charge $200 through Ecuador and $300 each through Guatemala and Colombia, according to the document.
The Homeland Security Department also revealed that the Haitians claimed they were from Congo while they traveled Central American countries. They were of the view that officials were unlikely to go through the tedious process of deporting them to West Africa in case they were caught.
Mexico, meanwhile, is believed to be more accommodating to the migrants. After processing papers, migrants receive a 20-day transit document, which gives them ample time to board a bus across Mexico, arriving eventually in Tijuana, just south of San Diego.
After stepping into U.S., many of the Haitians claim asylum and fight deportation in cases that can drag on for years, giving the migrants a foothold in the country.
Haitians are the latest nationality to surge into the United States, the document noted.
"The exponential increase in Haitian migrants showing up at the southern border is truly astonishing, and it shows one of the many consequences of President Obama's immigration policy, which invites illegal entry and exploitation of the system," said Joe Kasper, chief of staff for Hunter told The Post.
He also added he was astonished by Mexico's "complicity" in granting Haitians support to cross borders.
"Mexico doesn't want them, but it's entirely content with putting migrants — in this case Haitians — right on America's doorstep," he said.
After the 2010 earthquake, as many as 75,000 Haitians fled to Brazil. While 50,000 still remain, the rest have left.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency confirmed a rise in the number of Haitians arriving without consent.
The numbers reportedly shot up by a staggering 1800 percent from 339 in fiscal year 2015 to 6,121 in 2016.
"While CBP officials have made adjustments to port operations to accommodate this uptick in arriving individuals, CBP officials are used to dynamic changes at our local border crossings, including San Ysidro, the nation's busiest border crossing, and are able to flex resources to accommodate those changes," the border agency told The Post in a statement.
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