VZCZCXYZ0078
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDG #0733/01 0892306
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 302306Z MAR 07
FM AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7836
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHPU/AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE PRIORITY 4547
RUEHHK/AMCONSUL HONG KONG PRIORITY 0126
RUEFHLC/HQS DHS WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAHLC/HOMELAND SECURITY CENTER WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUMISTA/CDR USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL PRIORITY
RUEHUB/USINT HAVANA PRIORITY 0137

C O N F I D E N T I A L SANTO DOMINGO 000733 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR WHA, WHA/CAR, WHA/CCA, CA, INL, DRL, G-TIP, 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/30/2027 
TAGS: CVIS PGOV PHUM SMIG KCOR KCRM CH DR HA HK
SUBJECT: SENIOR DOMINICAN OFFICIALS IMPLICATED IN 
TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS AND ALIEN SMUGGLING 
 
Classified By: Michael Meigs, Economic & Political Counselor.  Reason: 
1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY:  High-level officials in the Dominican 
Ministries of Foreign Relations and Migration use their 
positions to facilitate human trafficking and alien smuggling 
schemes, according to media reports, DHS investigations and 
Embassy contacts. Those implicated include the Assistant 
Secretary of Consular Affairs in the Secretariat of Foreign 
 
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Relations and the Director and Assistant Director of the 
Directorate of Migration.  The smuggled aliens, particularly 
Chinese and Cuban nationals, use the Dominican Republic as a 
staging ground in attempts to migrate illegally to the United 
States.  END SUMMARY. 
 
 
¶2. (SBU) Growing numbers of Cuban and Chinese nationals are 
using the Dominican Republic as a staging ground in attempts 
to reach U.S. territory. The Embassy has received credible 
allegations that high-level officials in the Dominican 
Foreign Ministry and Directorate of Migration are 
facilitating those journeys by knowingly authorizing the 
entry into Dominican territory of intending U.S. migrants, 
sometimes in violation of Dominican law. 
 
 
------------------------------ 
CUBAN MIGRATION VIA HISPANIOLA 
------------------------------ 
 
¶3. (U) The Dominican Republic is located just 70 miles from 
the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.  The two islands are 
separated by the Mona Passage in the Caribbean.  Dominicans 
have long taken advantage of their country's proximity to 
Puerto Rico by operating clandestine illegal migration trips 
using small boats, or "yolas," to reach the western shore of 
Puerto Rico. 
 
¶4. (U) In recent years, growing numbers of Cubans have been 
joining Dominicans in these dangerous voyages. In these 
attempts, Cubans have an advantage not enjoyed by Dominican 
migrants -- they need not travel the entire distance to 
Puerto Rico. Under the "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans 
who reach U.S. territory are permitted to claim asylum and 
remain, while those apprehended at sea may be returned. The 
island of Mona, a nature reserve that is U.S. territory, lies 
approximately halfway between the Dominican Republic and 
Puerto Rico. Cubans need only set foot on the island in order 
to claim asylum and be given permission to remain in the 
United States. 
 
¶5. (SBU) In FY2001, no more than five Cubans reached Mona 
island, according to DHS data. However, the number of Cubans 
attempting the journey has exploded since then, to 318 in 
FY2004 and 752 in FY2006. The U.S. Coast Guard has 
apprehended 320 Cubans at sea in the Mona Passage over the 
first five months of FY2007. 
 
 
-------------------------------- 
CHINESE MIGRATION VIA HISPANIOLA 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶6. (C) The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reports that 
Chinese mafias operating in Puerto Rico and the Dominican 
Republic arrange the entry of large numbers of Chinese 
nationals into Dominican territory. Those Chinese nationals 
are generally held in a form of indentured servitude in 
Chinese-owned Dominican businesses while they repay their 
travel debts. Work conditions can be exploitative. According 
to DHS, the migrants' families in China are essentially held 
hostage in order to ensure repayment. 
 
¶7. (C) Once their debts are paid off, DHS reports, the 
migrants are either smuggled to U.S. territory via air or as 
stowaways on board merchant vessels, or are given 
transportation to Central America, where they attempt to make 
the crossing to the United States via land. Due to the level 
of risk involved in the journey, Chinese nationals do not 
generally attempt to cross the Mona Passage via yola. 
 
 
¶8. (C) One Embassy contact and business owner in the local 
Chinese community confirmed the operation of multiple Chinese 
smuggling outfits throughout the Dominican territory. He 
stated that many migrants arrive in the Dominican Republic 
and secure local jobs, all the while awaiting the opportunity 
to obtain passage to the United States. He says that although 
many of these migrants are smuggled to the United States on 
board charter flights (especially from Haiti) and merchant 
vessels, others obtain passage through more legitimate means. 
Specifically, the contact has the impression that the 
Embassy's consular section had grown more lenient toward 
Chinese visa applicants, and that many were able to obtain 
valid nonimmigrant and immigrant visas through fraudulent 
documentation or sham marriages. 
 
¶9. (C) DHS is conducting several ongoing investigations into 
Chinese trafficking organizations here in the Dominican 
Republic. 
 
 
------------------------------------- 
HOW THEY ENTER THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) Most Chinese and Cuban nationals tend to enter 
Dominican territory via air using Dominican travel visas 
issued abroad. Few of the travelers appear to qualify for 
those visas. Likewise, few return to their countries of 
origin. 
 
-- The Role of the Secretariat of Foreign Relations: 
 
¶11. (U) Investigative reporting published this week by 
newspaper Clave Digital revealed that the Secretariat of 
Foreign Relations has issued 2,948 30-day travel visas to 
Chinese nationals over the past two years. According to 
documents obtained by that newspaper, only 432 of those 
Chinese nationals have actually returned to their country of 
origin. The remaining 2,516 travelers, according to the 
newspaper, either remained illegally in the Dominican 
Republic or "used Dominican territory as a bridge" to reach 
the United States. 
 
¶12. (C) That story stated that most of the visas in question 
were issued at Dominican consulates in France, Spain, Canada, 
Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela. Only a minority of the visas 
were issued at Hong Kong, according to the report. However, 
the vast majority of such cases that Embassy sources have 
processed involve visas issued at the Dominican consulate in 
Hong Kong. According to Embassy contacts in the Chinese 
community, Dominican consulates overseas, especially in Hong 
Kong, sell Dominican visas and passports to the highest 
bidders. Econoff met one Chinese national who freely admitted 
that he purchased a Dominican passport in Hong Kong because 
"it made traveling easier." 
 
¶13. (U) However, although the consulates overseas were 
responsible for printing and issuing the visas in question, 
the Clave report states that the applications for those visas 
were made directly through the Office of the Assistant 
Secretary for Consular Affairs in the Foreign Ministry, 
 
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Rosario Graciano. 
 
¶14. (C) According to Embassy contacts and the Clave story, 
many of the Chinese visitors are given "investor" or 
"businessman" visas, even though they clearly do not qualify 
for these classifications. Often, the visitors are the 
subjects of petitions by the owners of Chinese fast-food 
restaurants or short-term hotels in the Dominican Republic -- 
often the same employers who intend to exploit the 
petitioners' labor when they arrive. 
 
¶15. (C) The Clave Report was not the first to accuse 
Assistant Secretary Graciano of facilitating the issuance of 
visas to intending Cuban and Chinese migrants. During a 
farewell call on the Ambassador, in February the outgoing 
director of the local office of the International 
Organization for Migration (IOM), Fanny Polania (PROTECT), 
denounced a procedure facilitating the entry of Cubans that 
 
was remarkably similar to the one outlined in the Clave 
story. Ms. Polania stated that Rosario Graciano was directly 
involved in authorizing Dominican consulates to issue visas 
to Cuban nationals who did not qualify for those visas. 
Polania said Assistant Secretary Graciano "personally 
demanded my head on multiple occasions" because she was 
concerned that the IOM representative posed a threat to her 
operations. 
 
¶16. (C) Polania also stated that Ms. Graciano's office 
contacted the Dominican military every time Cuban migrants 
were interdicted at sea and repatriated to the Dominican 
Republic. According to Polania, during those conversations 
the military is instructed to release, without charge or 
deportation hearings, all of the Cuban migrants who hold 
valid Dominican visas. Of course, this facilitates their 
ability to continue trying to cross the passage, and the U.S. 
Coast Guard confirms that they often see repeat travelers. 
 
 
-- The Role of the Directorate of Migration 
 
¶17. (U) Last week a news story published in Dominican 
afternoon tabloid El Nacional stated that U.S. authorities, 
in conjunction with Dominican agencies, were working to 
dismantle a network of Chinese traffickers. According to that 
article, the traffickers smuggled Chinese nationals into 
Dominican territory from Hong Kong and France using permits 
issued by the Directorate of Migration. From the Dominican 
Republic, the smuggled aliens were sent to Panama and Mexico, 
where they crossed into U.S. territory via land. 
 
¶18. (C) The information published in that story was 
remarkably similar to that provided by DHS, and it 
immediately provoked a reaction from Dominican authorities. 
On the day the story was published, Migration Director Carlos 
Amarante Baret went public, blaming the entry of Chinese 
nationals on the Foreign Ministry. "(The Directorate of) 
Migration only facilitates the entry of those travelers who 
are authorized by Foreign Ministry," Amarante said. Assistant 
Secretary for Consular Affairs Rosario Graciano also reacted 
 
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swiftly by inviting Acting Consul General Mike Schimmel to 
lunch, inquiring what he knew about the investigation. 
 
¶19. (C) Amarante has a point -- that the visas in question 
were issued by the MFA Office of Consular Affairs, rather 
than by his agency. But Amarante's agency plays a role in the 
entry of Chinese nationals, too. According both to the Clave 
report and to DHS investigators, immigration inspectors at 
the airports are instructed to provide "VIP courtesies" to 
all Chinese nationals who enter the country. Such courtesies 
are not extended to travelers of any other nationalities. 
According to the Clave Report, the Directorate of Migration 
also issues special "verifications" to airlines that 
transport Chinese nationals in order to ensure that the 
travelers are given transportation. Again, such services are 
reportedly not provided to travelers of any other 
nationalities. DHS says that these services are provided in 
order to ensure the transit and entry of travelers who 
clearly lack the basic qualifications for the visas they have 
been issued. 
 
¶20. (U) Drafted by Alexander T. Bryan. 
 
¶21. (U) This report and extensive other material can be 
consulted on our SIPRNET site, 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo/  
HERTELL