From AP on July 8, 2008 (Hat Tip: American Renaissance):
Intelligence officials are focusing new attention on these networks that smuggle people from Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan - known havens for terrorists, including al-Qaida - according to an internal government assessment obtained by The Associated Press.
In the 12 months that ended last Sept. 30, U.S. officials caught 372 East Africans trying to get into the country, the assessment said. This is the most from these countries since the Homeland Security Department was formed in 2003. And 159 people from the same countries have been caught trying to enter since Oct. 1 - including 138 from Eritrea, far more than any other country in the Horn of Africa.
[…]
One senior intelligence official said there’s little evidence yet of East Africans trying to cross into the U.S. to engage in terrorist activity. The official requested anonymity because the information in the assessment is not public.
As computer chips and biometrics are required more often for travel documents, terrorists will have a more difficult time entering the U.S. and could potentially use these smuggling routes as an alternative, said Hatfield, the immigration official who heads the human smuggling division.
The number of smuggling networks has remained steady over the past 10 years, with the highest concentration in Latin America, Hatfield said. It’s the price and violence that have gone up. Ten years ago, it might have cost $500 to go from Mexico to Texas, whereas now it could cost up to $2,000.
“The competition is now harder for someone to come in illegally,” Hatfield said. “The goal of the smuggler is to make as much money as they can.”
People with terrorist ties still try to enter the country legally or with fake documents, Hatfield said, but ICE is keeping an eye on other potential methods now that there are heightened security checks. “We’re watching those closely,” he said.
Terrorists will continue to use whatever means necessary to get into the United States - including smuggling networks, said Janice Kephart, a former counsel on the Sept. 11 Commission. Because it’s much harder to use false documents than it once was, these smuggling networks offer a good way to get into the country anonymously, she said.
The East African countries that Homeland Security is watching all have weak enforcement in place for travel documents and have connections to organizations with anti-American causes, Kephart said.
From MichelleMalkin.com on July 10, 2008:
Here’s an interesting detail that didn’t make it into the AP report: if you’re wondering where this smuggling ring they discuss got its fake documents, this newspaper report from Belize might offer a clue:
“Sampson Lovelace Boateng, 53, admitted that between approximately June 2006 and February 2007, he conspired with others to smuggle unauthorized aliens to the United States by providing them with fraudulently obtained Mexican visas,” said the release. “Boateng charged approximately $500 per visa. These documents, which Boateng obtained through a corrupt employee of the Mexican Embassy in Belize, enabled East African aliens to travel into Mexico and reach a point where they could be smuggled across the southern U.S. border.”
Boateng, who was formally arrested in the US on November 5, 2007, reportedly operated as a car dealer while in Belize. He was extradited from Belize after he and two other Ghanaians - Frank Boateng (his brother), 28, and Gwame Boakye, 26, as well as his the common-law wife, a Belizean woman named Irma Valencia, 49, were arrested in connection with what police had said was a major immigration scam.
…
Valencia was employed as a secretary at the Mexican Embassy while the scam was ongoing.
Open borders, prospective guest worker amnesty, lack of immigration enforcement, our Supreme Court, the visa lottery, excess legal immigration, Mexican Muslims, and the tendency of our government to invite dangerous people into the country, are all national security threats.
Tags: illegal immigration, open borders, terrorism, Counterterrorism, Mexican border, human trafficking, Africa, Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, visa lottery, immigration, national security
