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BUSINESS IS BOOMING. TURIN, A TRIP organizer from the small Dominican town of Miches, runs three trips every month. With each boat carrying 100 refugees, he grosses about $150,000 a year. If a boat capsizes or is captured, he gets another one and schedules an extra trip to recoup his costs. Says Turin: "There are always people willing to go." Recently, as darkness fell on Miches, Turin and his assistants and bodyguards whisked through the town, picking up passengers from safe houses and taking them to a gathering point on the beach. He was expecting a new batch of Italian immigrants, but they never appeared. A group of Koreans arrived but decided to take a different boat.
So on this trip there are mainly Dominicans, but also Ecuadorans, Haitians and a Cuban. Manuel Diaz, a Colombian traveling with his wife, paid $8,000 for the trip. "I have a job waiting for me at a grocery store on Northern Boulevard, Queens," he says proudly. Mar’a Rodriguez, a Cuban, says she simply could not earn enough in her native land. "Look at my hands," she says, showing fingers and palms callused from years of manual labor. "I am still young. But there is no way to survive where I come from. I left my children with relatives, and I came. There was no other choice."
Midnight. A 40-ft. boat pulls up, and an anguished murmur goes out from the 200 refugees on shore-the craft is too small. The buscones begin yelling and waving their machetes. Over two grueling hours, they crowd 111 people aboard the vessel; each passenger's legs spread to accommodate the person in front of him. When the voyage finally starts, there is no room to move. The ship is leaky and reeks of gasoline. Passengers vomit. Others sleep. By the time the sun rises, everybody is stiff and tense.
At 10 a.m. a U.S. Coast Guard plane appears. Hoping not to be seen, passengers huddle on the floor of the boat, which is slimy with vomit and seawater. The boat heads to the desecheo to shake its pursuers. No luck. At noon another small plane with American markings breaks through the haze along the horizon.
It's over. Soon they will all be picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard, returned to the Dominican Republic and fined $2 each. There will be no New York, no new life and no refund. The boat captains change clothes and seat themselves among the passengers to avoid detection. One female passenger starts to cry. Her trip is a waste, her future uncertain. But one boat captain is defiant. "We will go again next week," he vows. "They cannot stop us."
--Reported by Edward Barnes/Miches