The terrain of the Sonoran Desert, south of Arizona has long been a favored avenue of entry for illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries. But in the last year, the authorities say, smugglers have increasingly capitalized on a much more lucrative business -- trafficking Chinese citizens into the United States.
In fiscal 2009, 332 Chinese immigrants were caught in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, up from 30 the previous year, Border Patrol figures showed. And in what could be a sign of a record-breaking pace for this year, agents in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector arrested 281 Chinese immigrants from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, the first quarter of the current fiscal year.
In the most common one, immigrants fly from Beijing to Rome, board a plane to Caracas, Venezuela, fly to Mexico City and work their way up to the northern border and into the United States. In another, they travel to Cuba, fly to the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and travel north into the United States. Once immigrants are in Mexico, crossing into the Tucson area is the route of choice because the smuggling infrastructure is already in place.. (Source: Stephen Ceasar, New York Times, Jan 22, 2010).