VZCZCXRO2633
PP RUEHQU
DE RUEHPU #0073/01 0151640
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 151640Z JAN 08
FM AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7489
INFO RUEHZH/HAITI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA PRIORITY 1742
RUEHKG/AMEMBASSY KINGSTON PRIORITY 2038
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 0171
RUEHBH/AMEMBASSY NASSAU PRIORITY 2697
RUEHSA/AMEMBASSY PRETORIA PRIORITY 1556
RUEHDG/AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO PRIORITY 0726
RUEHQU/AMCONSUL QUEBEC PRIORITY 0979
RUEABND/DEA HQS WASHDC PRIORITY
RUMIAAA/HQ USSOUTHCOM J2 MIAMI FL PRIORITY
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 1392

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 PORT AU PRINCE 000073 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA/EX AND WHA/CAR 
STATE FOR NAS AND S/CRS AND CA/FPP 
SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD 
STATE PASS AID FOR LAC/CAR 
INR/IAA 
WHA/EX PLEASE PASS USOAS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM HA CVIS SMIG
SUBJECT: GOVERNMENTS ON HISPANIOLA DESIRE COOPERATION ON 
BORDER MANAGEMENT 
 
PORT AU PR 00000073  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
¶1.  (U)  This cable is sensitive, but unclassified.  Please 
protect accordingly. 
 
¶2.  (U)  Summary.  A regional consultative meeting on travel 
document fraud, sponsored by the International Organization 
for Migration (IOM), brought together representatives of five 
Caribbean countries to discuss travel document fraud and the 
need to cooperate on tackling the cross-border crime that 
travel document fraud facilitates.  The meeting included site 
visits to the Haitian-Dominican border at Malpasse-Jimani and 
the airport at Port-au-Prince.  IOM in Haiti is seeking to 
channel this regional meeting into an ongoing consultation 
mechanism on cross-border migration.  IOM officials also 
believe that Haitian and Dominican Republic officials now 
want to engage bilaterally on border management and security. 
 IOM seeks USG support for this effort.  End summary. 
 
Opening Remarks 
---------------------- 
 
¶3.  (U)  The International Organization for Migration (IOM) 
on December 6-7 sponsored a regional consultative meeting in 
Port-au-Prince on travel document fraud under its project, 
"Capacity Building in Migration Management" (CBMM), sponsored 
by the government of Canada.  Five countries sent 
representatives: the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Haiti, 
Jamaica, and Turks and Caicos-United Kingdom.  Paul-Antoine 
Bien-Aime, the Minister of the Interior, and Jose Serulle 
Ramia, the Dominican Ambassador in Port-au-Prince, opened the 
meeting by indicating that they wanted to put in place a 
permanent mechanism for cooperation along the border. 
Ambassador Ramia went further by saying that the government 
of the Dominican Republic (GDR) and the GoH also understood 
that they must address border problems politically in order 
to support the necessary policy changes on border management. 
 Ramia indicated that trafficking in persons, transnational 
crime, and terrorism -- not globalization -- are the urgent 
problems mandating that the GoH and the GDR share the burden 
in dealing with migration. 
 
Country Presentations 
---------------------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  The Bahamas.  Dwight Beneby, the Chief Immigration 
Officer at the Bahamian Immigration Department noted they are 
seeing less photo substitutions in passports but more 
fraudulent work permits, identity documents, and Bahamian 
visas.  In addition to introducing machine-readable passports 
and new work permit cards, the Bahamian are conducting more 
investigations. 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  The Dominican Republic.  Carlos Castillo, the 
Dominican Consul General in Port-au-Prince, admitted his 
country's visa system was vulnerable to fraud.  The GDR has 
issued new, machine-printed visa labels similar to those of 
the United States, and phasing out ink-stamp visas.  In 
addition, the GDR has introduced digital passports with some 
biometric elements.  Castillo admitted that Cuban nationals 
are using both Haiti and the Dominican Republic as transit 
points to the United States. 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  Haiti.  Jean Wilfrid Bertrand, Director General of 
the National Archives, noted that many Haitians in the 
interior provinces have no birth documents, and many life 
event documents, such as birth, marriage, and death 
certificates, are error-filled.  The GoH's inability to 
register life events directly contributes to the production 
of false documents.  The initial response of the National 
Archives has been to centralize document registration and 
authentication at the main National Archive in 
Port-au-Prince.  Bertrand underscored that the real solution 
was computerization of all records, which he claimed is 
underway in Port-au-Prince, after which decentralization of 
the National Archives into the provinces must occur. 
 
PORT AU PR 00000073  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  Jamaica.  Cordel McFarlane, the Inspector of 
Police for the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency 
(PICA), highlighted that individuals wanted by the 
authorities as well as deportees are most likely to use 
passports with substituted photographs in order to get a 
visa.  PICA often encounters imposter fraud, genuine British 
passports fraudulently issued, altered passports and 
fraudulent visas.  McFarlane noted that Jamaica is a transit 
point for human smuggling, with United States and United 
Kingdom the prime destinations.  PICA encounters Indians with 
non-machine readable, and sometimes fraudulent, passports; 
Chinese nationals trying to pose as Japanese nationals for 
onward travel; persons from Belize claiming to be Jamaican 
residents; Sri Lankans claiming to want to travel to Canada 
but requesting asylum in the United States; and Guyanese 
nationals claiming to be Indian nationals.  McFarlane also 
noted that persons traveling to and from Havana, Cuba pose 
special problems since their true travel intentions are often 
unclear. 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  Turks and Caicos, United Kingdom.  Benson 
Williams, Assistant Director of Immigration in the Ministry 
of Home Affairs and Public Safety, stated that Turks and 
Caicos is a transit point for human smuggling, with the 
United States and United Kingdom the prime destinations. 
Benson noted that a valid Turks and Caicos (British) passport 
is highly coveted for it enables a person to travel to the 
U.S., U.K. and all European Union countries without a visa. 
Benson noted that Nigerian and Indian nationals are heavily 
involved in trying to obtain genuine Turks and Caicos or U.K. 
passports.  In response, Turks and Caicos has created a 
Special Police Immigration and Customs Enforcement (SPICE) 
unit.  SPICE can enter any premises with "just cause", 
without a warrant.  Turks and Caicos also has a computerized 
border control system that records entry and departure 
information, which is saved for 20 years. 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  Turks and Caicos continued.  In a separate meeting 
with Poloff, Williams noted that illegal sea migration to 
Turks and Caicos from Haiti is a continuing problem.  Because 
traditional wooden boats fitted with motors coming from Haiti 
are likely to have illegal migrants or contraband onboard, 
Turks and Caicos has banned their entry into its waters. 
Nevertheless, Benson claimed there are weekly interceptions 
of such boats from Haiti.  Moreover, his agents are now 
seeing American-made fiberglass or metal fast boats arriving 
from Haiti.  These boats arrive in the dead of night, 
disembark about 20-25 migrants at a time, and then return to 
Haiti.  Benson noted that a fast boat can make the one-way 
trip from Haiti to Turks and Caicos in three hours, and since 
these boats are permitted in Turks and Caicos territorial 
waters, the authorities cannot intercept them without cause. 
Another ruse is for a fast boat to arrive for legitimate 
commerce with its legal crew of six persons, but depart with 
only two or three persons onboard. 
 
Site Visits 
------------ 
 
¶10.  (U)  Malpasse, Haiti.  On December 7, IOM escorted 
meeting participants to Malpasse, Haiti; Jimani, Dominican 
Republic; and the National Airport in Port-au-Prince to 
assess procedures at these immigration checkpoints.  Adeclat 
Gracia, Supervisor for Immigration and Emigration at 
Malpasse, led the site visit.  The border crossing at 
Malpasse appeared disorganized and under-resourced.  Poloff 
could discern no order or procedure for clearing commercial 
traffic.  The immigration and customs offices, which were 
co-located, were dark due to a lack of light bulbs, but 
electric fans were functioning.  There were no computers, 
manual or electric adding machines, or visible accounting 
systems.  Even though IOM had earlier installed doors and a 
toilet and painted the facility, the facility appeared 
 
PORT AU PR 00000073  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
ramshackle.  IOM's CBMM project plans to install new 
computers, radios, and a solar energy collector to generate 
electricity.  Gracia claimed that the Ministry of Interior 
stationed 18 immigration officers at the Malpasse border 
while the Ministry of Finance stationed 21 customs officers, 
not including the 2 persons to collect the duties.  Garcia 
also said that there were six armed SWAT officers on site. 
 
¶11.  (U)  Jimani, Dominican Republic.  Ambassador Ramia led 
the site visit in Jimani.  Immigration and customs are 
co-located at the Jimani border.  The Jimani border crossing 
was well-organized in respect to parking, immigration, and 
customs.  The facility appeared to have reliable electricity. 
 There were functioning lights, electric adding machines, a 
typewriter, computers, and a security camera.  At the 
immigration windows, there were posters on document 
identification, anti-corruption efforts and information on 
visa types and fees.  There were also at least twenty armed 
security personnel.  Ramia noted that the GDR does not 
incarcerate individuals with fake visas at Jimani; rather, it 
sends them back to Haiti. 
 
¶12.  (SBU)  Port-au-Prince Airport.  Guy Napoleon, Supervisor 
General of Immigration at the Port-au-Prince airport, led the 
site visit.  The passport processing areas appeared to 
process travelers in an orderly, structured manner.  The 
facility had reliable electricity and computer processing of 
machine readable passports.  There were also closed-circuit 
cameras.  In a presentation after the tour, Guy Napoleon 
mentioned that Cubans were using Haiti as a transit point for 
onward travel. 
 
IOM Meeting Assessment 
----------------- 
 
¶13.  (SBU)  In an email to Poloff, Vincent Houver, IOM Chief 
of Mission in Haiti, wrote that he believes that the 
conference reflected increased interest from other countries 
in the region in engaging Haiti in constructive dialogue on 
migration, trafficking in persons, and cross-border crime. 
Houver claimed that IOM is working with Haitian officials to 
channel this meeting into more regular regional 
consultations, at the working level and at a higher political 
level.  IOM wants this process to produce bilateral exchanges 
and negotiations between the GDR and the GoH without 
excessive visibility or formality.  The Haitian Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Interior as well as the GDR, 
Houver said, are keen to pursue this track.  Houver said he 
hopes to convene ministerial-level representatives from the 
region toward the end of the first quarter of 2008 to get the 
process started.  Houver wanted to know the USG views on this 
initiative and to what extent the U.S. would support it. 
 
Comment 
------------ 
 
¶14.  (SBU)  IOM achieved its ulterior goal for the meeting, 
which Houver defined as getting Haitian and Dominican 
authorities talking to each other about border management. 
The meeting was successful because: the GoH admitted that 
illegal migration of Haitians is an issue for which it must 
accept responsibility; Ministry of Interior officials at the 
highest levels now support engagement with the GDR over 
border management; and finally, the GDR appears to support 
engagement with the GoH as well.  Houver identified Pierre 
Canisius Guignard, Director of the Direction of Political 
Affairs and Human Rights (DAPDH) in the Haitian Ministry of 
Interior, as the Haitian official who persuaded his 
colleagues that collaboration in border management, and hence 
the meeting, was long overdue.  Dominican Ambassador Ramia 
strongly supported GDR engagement with Haiti, noting that the 
GDR stronly desires cooperation in border management, despite 
the high numbers of illegal Haitians the DR expels (16,000 in 
2007).  The GoH's desire to become more active in managing 
 
PORT AU PR 00000073  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
the Haitian-Dominican border may also stem from a desire to 
react to the expansion of MINUSTAH's mandate into border 
security.  Post recommends that the USG support and encourage 
the current GoH-GDR consensus for cooperation in border 
management. 
SANDERSON