Brazilians Turning to Mexican Smugglers, U.S. Officials Say

With mounting debt, a baby on the way and few prospects in their small town of Criciuma, Brazil, Luciani Motta and her husband Scharles turned their sights on America.

After being rejected several times for a tourist visa, the young couple headed north, planning to enter the United States illegally through Mexico. Scharles Motta made it; his wife and daughter did not.

They are among nearly 2,200 Brazilians arrested so far this year by the U.S. Border Patrol. Last year, the number was 3,200, up from about 250 in 1998.

The trend, U.S. immigration officials say, points to the growing international appeal of Mexican smuggling rings that have honed their skills over decades of transporting mostly Mexican migrants into the U.S.

The great majority of those caught at the border are still Mexicans and Central Americans, but even as their numbers have dwindled in recent years--from 1.55 million in 1998 to 1.24 million last year--those of other countries have doubled in that same period from about 10,500 to 22,000.

In San Diego County alone, Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 1,200 Brazilians in the last three years, the second-highest nationality behind Mexicans. San Diego border agents also captured 143 Chinese, 51 Ukrainians, 45 Cubans and 43 Russians trying to cross from Mexico.

“We are in a major corridor for migrant smuggling,” said Adele Fasano, Immigration and Naturalization Service director for the San Diego district. “Unfortunately, because there is such a well-developed infrastructure of Mexican smuggling rings, that infrastructure is now being used to support international smuggling.”

The phenomenon has also raised the specter of terrorists using Mexico as a passageway to the U.S.

“We are in the highest state of alert,” Fasano said. “The concern is that the smugglers will change their tactics. They get more sophisticated as we get more sophisticated.”

Beginning in October, INS agents at all ports of entry will photograph and fingerprint foreign visitors deemed to represent terrorist risks. The technology, already employed on a limited basis, has helped the agency apprehend thousands of wanted criminals trying to reenter the country since the beginning of the year.

Despite the tightening security on U.S. borders, or maybe because of it, Brazilians and others are turning in growing numbers to Mexican smugglers, immigration officials said. The route is particularly appealing to Brazilians because they do not need a visa to enter Mexico.

Authorities believe many are being enticed by smuggling rings in their native country that are collaborating with Mexican traffickers for a piece of the lucrative business.

Migrants pay up to $3,000 for the services of a “coyote,” or smuggler, once in Mexico, but middlemen charge their own fees along the way, which can add thousands more.

“We believe these people are being lured systematically” by the smugglers, said Marissol Romares, deputy consul of the Brazilian Consulate in Los Angeles. The migrants “are usually humble and gullible people from small towns. They are sold on dreams of America.”

Like others before them, the Mottas saw the U.S. as an escape from their country’s perennial socioeconomic ills, made worse recently by a stubborn recession.

The Mottas heard tales of other Brazilians who made it to the U.S. One city in Brazil, Governador Valadares, has been nicknamed Governador Valadolares, because of the dollars, or dolares in Portuguese, sent back by its native sons and daughters.

Scharles Motta, 27, needed dolares. Working as a waiter in Criciuma, his wife said, he made barely enough to support himself.

He had tried several times to get a tourist visa, but American consular officials in Sao Paulo correctly suspected that he intended to stay in the U.S. and seek work.

Four years ago, he met Luciani, an office worker and aspiring teacher. The couple married two years later. With his new wife, Motta again applied for a visa and was turned down. A year later, Luciani Motta was pregnant.

“His dream was to make enough money to buy us a house” in Criciuma, said Luciani, 29. “He always said he didn’t want to live in the U.S. permanently. He didn’t want to live his life hiding” as an illegal immigrant.

That’s the life he is living now. Two years ago, Scharles Motta bought a ticket to Mexico City, his wife said. Someone who had made the trip before suggested the Mexican route to the United States.

In Mexico, he connected with smugglers who directed him to Tijuana and then guided him through the treacherous border terrain east of San Diego and into the U.S. Similar treks have claimed more than 200 lives this year alone, from hypothermia and heat exhaustion, according to the U.S. Border Patrol. Once in the U.S., Motta flew to Boston, his final destination.

This summer, despite her husband’s vehement warnings about the dangers, Luciani Motta tried to follow, with their young daughter in her arms.

Border Patrol agents caught Motta, her daughter and seven others by the side of Interstate 8 near El Centro in June, abandoned by their smugglers, bodies bruised by the desert.

The Mottas’ daughter, Hachiley, spoke her first words while in U.S. custody, her mother said.

“She repeats the same word over and over,” Luciani Motta said. “ ‘Medo, medo,’ ” which means “fear.”

Their frightening journey started in early June. The slightly built woman, who had never ventured farther than a few hundred miles from home, boarded an Aero Mexico flight to Mexico City with her daughter.

Despite misgivings, she pressed on. From a Mexico City hotel, Motta called her husband and told him of her plan to follow him north. He was furious.

Her husband relented, she said, and made arrangements with smugglers to sneak her and their daughter to the U.S. They flew to Tijuana and checked into a dingy hotel, she said. There they were met by a burly man with a ponytail named Ricardo.

Ricardo got straight down to business, Luciani Motta said. He quickly drew a map on the room’s brick wall.

“You are in Baja California,” Ricardo told her. “Memorize this because it is very important. You are going to take a bus to Mexicali. If you are stopped [by police], you tell them you are going to check a famous seafood restaurant.”

Because Portuguese and Spanish are similar languages, Motta understood most of what Ricardo was saying, but she struggled to keep up.

“I was so lost,” she said. “I had never heard of these places....I was so scared, but I had to mask it. My husband had told me, ‘Keep calm. We don’t know what kind of people we are dealing with.’ ”

Ricardo finished his instructions, Motta said, and then assured her, “Don’t worry. You are in good hands.”

He also gave her a pair of sneakers, Motta said.

Mother and daughter boarded a bus in Tijuana with a 12-year-old boy who would serve as their guide for this part of the journey.

Motta trekked through the desert, sometimes breast-feeding the baby as she walked. She ended up on the side of the freeway near El Centro late at night, waiting for a final ride that would take them to an airport in San Diego.

Hachiley was scratched from the walk through the desert. Motta hadn’t had anything to drink or eat for nearly 12 hours and was feeling faint.

With them were three men and four women also smuggled in and their two guides, including the 12-year-old boy.

Then, the group spotted a flashlight in the distance, Motta said. It was a Border Patrol agent following the group’s footprints. The smugglers left, telling the group that they would make a phone call to check on their ride. They never returned.

As Border Patrol agents descended on the group, Motta said, she thought of making a final dash across the freeway.

“I looked at Hachiley,” she said, rubbing a scar on her daughter’s face, “and I just couldn’t do it.”

Motta has been in the San Diego detention house for two months as her deportation proceedings continue. She clings to the hope that her husband will come up with the $30,000 bail the judge has imposed, so she can reunite with him, even if only briefly.

“I’ve come this far,” she said. “I can’t just go back.”