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| Home Front: WoT |
| Pipelines Send Illegal Immigrants to U.S. |
| 2005-07-02 |
| TIJUANA, Mexico - The men flocked to the cafe under the sign with the cedar tree, symbol of their Mideast home. Here, in this alien border land, it was the beacon that led to an Arab "brother" who would help them complete their journey from Lebanon into America. They would come, sometimes dozens a month over a three-year period, to find Salim Boughader Mucharrafille — the cafe owner who drove a Mercedes and catered to some of Tijuana's more affluent denizens, including workers at the U.S. consulate only a short stroll away. His American customers were unaware that the savvy boss of La Libanesa cafe ran a less reputable business on the side. Until his arrest in December 2002, Boughader smuggled about 200 Lebanese compatriots into the United States, including sympathizers of Hezbollah, designated a terrorist organization by U.S. authorities. One client, Boughader said, worked for a Hezbollah-owned television network, which glorifies suicide bombers and is itself on an American terror watch list. "If they had the cedar on their passport, you were going to help them. That's what my father taught me," Boughader told The Associated Press from a Mexico City prison, where he faces charges following a human-smuggling conviction in the United States. "What I did was help a lot of young people who wanted to work for a better future. What's the crime in bringing your brother so that he can get out of a war zone?" A report released by the Sept. 11 commission staff last year examining how terrorists travel the world cited Boughader as the only "human smuggler with suspected links to terrorists" convicted to date in the United States. But he is not unique. After Boughader was locked up, other smugglers operating in Lebanon, Mexico and the United States continued to help Hezbollah-affiliated migrants in their effort to illicitly enter from Tijuana, a U.S. immigration investigator said in Mexican court documents obtained by the AP. Rest at link. |
| Posted by:ed |