http://news.yahoo.com/gypsies-curious-route-us-asylum-070606774.htmlDERBY LINE, Vermont (AP) — A minivan with California license plates and a dozen passengers zipped across the border between Vermont and Quebec in October, heading north in a southbound lane unblocked by traffic.
Border agents could only watch as the Dodge Caravan sped off into Quebec. But the vehicle and its occupants didn't try to disappear.
About 22 miles later, they stopped in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Magog, Quebec, and asked someone to call the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. After the Mounties arrived, the Gypsies in the vehicle applied for political asylum.
"It's as though they had it programmed into their GPS," said Magog police spokesman Paul Tear.
That may not be far from the truth. Canadian authorities announced this week that they had broken up a circuitous but ingenious human smuggling ring that shuttled Romanians 11,000 miles from Europe to Mexico and across the U.S. to the famously porous border between the twin communities of Derby Line, Vermont, and Stanstead, Quebec.
Interviews and statistics gathered by The Associated Press in the weeks before the announcement revealed that the Romanians are largely ethnic Roma people, or Gypsies. Canadian officials say many of the immigrants move to Toronto and Montreal, which have large Roma communities.
"Quite frankly, we really haven't seen anything like this in our immigration system before," Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said at a news conference Wednesday in Stanstead.
At the other end of the U.S., domestic authorities are also watching the migration.
"We have noticed and are aware of an increase in the number of Roma who are being smuggled into the United States and are concerned about it," said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego.
A 2004 agreement between the U.S. and Canada in how the two countries deal with asylum seekers is driving the latest migration, experts told the AP.
The Roma are descendants of nomads who moved out of what is now India 800 years ago. They speak a distinct language, a variation of Hindi. They have faced centuries of oppression in Europe that many advocates — and some countries, like Canada — say continues today. They have been forcibly resettled through the ages and were put in concentration camps during World War II.
More than 1 million Roma are believed to be living in Romania, a country of about 22 million. There is widespread prejudice against Roma, who are often unemployed and lack formal education because they do not always send their children to school. Because of poverty and prejudice, Roma often travel to Italy, Spain, France and Britain, where they beg, busk, live off welfare benefits or get involved in petty crime, according to authorities in those countries.
If the Romanians were to present themselves at a Canadian border post, they would be refused entry and told to seek asylum in the United States, which has more difficult requirements and where asylum seekers are not eligible for welfare benefits.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>MORE AT LINK<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
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