[South Texas:]'Kidnapped' Cuban immigrants found near Hidalgo

Officials have confirmed that 18 out of 33 Cuban immigrants allegedly kidnapped near Cancun were found by Border Patrol agents near Hidalgo, Texas.

The immigrants are believed to have spent more than week in alleged custody of smugglers.

Mexico's El Universal reported that the incident began at sea on June 6 when the Mexican Navy rescued a boat loaded with 33 Cuban immigrants off the State of Quintan Roo.

The newspaper reported that the immigrants were placed in federal custody for deportation proceedings.

But six armed and masked men allegedly hijacked a federal immigration bus carrying the Cubans, three Guatemalans and one Salvadoran.

The rescued Cubans told officials they were taken from Quintana Roo to Veracruz where they were divided in groups and sent to different parts of the border.

The immigrants told investigators that they passed through numerous checkpoints in Mexico with no problems.

El Universal reported that the hijacked bus was found on the Mexican side of the border.

U.S. Border Patrol agents found 18 of the Cuban immigrants on the American side of the border near Hidalgo this week.

U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement officials told El Universal that 14 of the immigrants were identified as:

Francisco Reiner Cabrera Navarro Leonardo Santana Ramos Rolando Torres Vega Arnanldo Alberto Oviedo Sotolongo Fernando Ramírez Torres Alexander Jorin Falcón Ramón Barrios Maderos Pedro Dieppa Vega Arnoldo Alarcón Brizuela Manuel Dayron Hernández Betancourt Ronald Jesús Naranjo Hassty Yamilet Fonseca Chávez Juan Luis Torres Cambar Félix Reynel Santallana Arma The Mexican Attorney General's Office told El Universal that Nairobi Claro Ortega and Noriel Veloz were charged for their alleged involvement in the smuggling plot.

Both Ortega and Veloz were identified as Cuban nationals with permanent residency status in the United States.

El Universal also reported that nine officials with Mexico's Immigration Agency (INAMI) and two bus drivers were also arrested and charged for their involvement.

Apparently this is a smuggling ring based upon the details in this story.

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/world/06/20/0620cubansmexico.html

Missing Cubans find way to Texas

Cuban migrants reach Texas after being snatched off bus by gunmen in Mexico.
By Jeremy Schwartz , John Lantigua

MEXICO CITY STAFF

Friday, June 20, 2008

MEXICO CITY — Shortly after night fell on a remote highway in southern Mexico, a government bus carrying 33 detained Cuban immigrants last week was hijacked by hooded gunmen, who seized the Cubans before escaping into the jungle.

Just who took the Cubans remains a mystery. But after a week, at least 18 of the Cubans appeared in good health at a U.S. border crossing in Hidalgo, just across from Reynosa, Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office said Thursday.

The Cuban migrants told U.S. Border Patrol agents they were taken to a safe house in Veracruz where they were given fake documents, allowing them to pass through roadblocks and checkpoints on their passage north.

Despite the extra attention at checkpoints, the Cubans, who were split into smaller groups, said they had no problem passing through them as they took commercial buses to the border, according to Mexican officials.

What was once believed to be a mass kidnapping now appears to have been a carefully orchestrated rescue in the increasingly violent world smuggling Cubans through Mexico.

The incident has also brought international attention to Mexico’s immigration agency, which human rights activists, Cuban exiles and some Mexican officials say is riddled with corruption.

The Cubans were originally seized June 6 in the waters just off of Cancun. They were among a growing wave of Cubans trying to enter the United States through Mexico.

The route through Mexico has become increasingly popular, observers say, because of the U.S. policy — known as “wet foot/dry foot” — in which Cubans who reach U.S. soil are allowed to stay while those caught at sea off the Florida coast are returned to Cuba.

But the Cubans’ disappearance from a government bus on June 11 has many believing their seizure by masked gunmen was an inside job.

Despite the large busload of detainees, the immigration agents, who are unarmed in Mexico, didn’t request the usual armed police escort. And agents didn’t report the attack for hours, giving the gunmen what proved to be an insurmountable head start.

In the aftermath of the incident, a high-ranking immigration official in the region was fired and Mexico’s federal organized crime division investigated the agents on the bus. Nine immigration agents, along with the two bus drivers, have been detained.

Cuba’s ambassador in Mexico, Manuel Aguilera de la Paz, blamed a “Miami mafia” of anti-Castro exiles for being behind the network of Cuban immigrant smuggling. Cuban exile groups deny that anti-Castro forces are responsible for the smuggling, blaming instead corrupt officials and organized crime groups.

Cuban exile and human rights organizations have long complained of abuse and corruption in Mexican immigration detention centers.

“Some of the guards extort money from the Cubans who are being held,” said Ramon Saul Sanchez, leader of the Democracia Movement, one of the largest Cuban exile organizations based in Miami. “They tell a Cuban, ‘Have your family send me $100 dollars and I’ll get you better food to eat.’ Or they ask for money to give the Cubans access to a phone.”

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