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Despite the mounting popularity of this route, the trip is generally perilous and expensive. A Central American pays upwards of $4,000; someone leaving from China pays $35,000 for the journey. After the immigrant arrives on the Dominican coast, there are two classes of transport. Once a week, the Mafia sponsors a crossing on a sleek Boston Whaler that for $900 will deliver a well-heeled traveler with "impediments to immigration," such as passport problems or outstanding warrants, to a yacht waiting off the shores of Puerto Rico.
For everyone else, the voyage is a brutal, shoddy affair organized by small-time thugs, condoned by corrupt, bribe-taking public officials, and implemented by 100 or so boat captains who live along the Dominican coast. Trip organizers often run a series of scams on their desperate and vulnerable customers. Sometimes passengers are not permitted to bring food on board for the two-day trip; once the voyage is under way, provisions are sold to them at exorbitant prices. And it's not uncommon for the organizers to rob passengers before allowing them to disembark. One of the cruelest and most common ruses is for a captain to take his customers on a circuitous voyage, stop on a deserted Dominican beach and tell the disoriented, usually seasick passengers that they have arrived in the U.S. Three weeks ago, 50 passengers came to Las Lisas for a prepaid trip, but the organizer and his boat failed to materialize. Said a furious refugee: "I will find him and kill him with my bare hands." A Colombian woman declared stoically, "I will find another boat." She had already been robbed and raped in her three-month quest to reach America, and she wasn't going to be discouraged by a mere con man.
But the greatest peril on these trips is posed not by man but by nature. The Mona straits, which separate the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, are among the most difficult waters in the world for small boats to navigate. To avoid detection, the poorly made yolas usually set a course through the desecheo (detour), a treacherous stretch of sea avoided by legitimate traffic. Experts estimate that, all told, 10% to 20% of refugee boats capsize. A videotape taken several years ago by a Puerto Rican customs official shows some 50 refugees, their boat overturned, being devoured by frenzied sharks.
There have been few serious efforts to clean up or stamp out the immigrant trade; it is simply too vital to the Dominican Republic's economy. Eugenio Cabral, executive director of civil defense for the Dominican Republic, claims to have attempted a crackdown. Three of his men infiltrated organizations running the trips-and all three were killed. When Cabral sent reports to the Dominican navy about upcoming voyages, no action was taken. Instead assassins tried three times to kill him. He has since given up. "In the provinces, everyone has a hand in the business,'' he says. "Senators and Deputies profit directly. There is little that can be done."