Immigration

More Haitians using Puerto Rico as migrant route

By Danica Coto, Trenton Daniel
Published May 6, 2013 4:00am ET
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More Haitians using Puerto Rico as migrant route
In this May 4, 2013 photo, workers build a sailboat on the beach of Leogane, Haiti. The 30-foot-long boats are purchased by smugglers for around $12,000 and then taken to northern Haiti to find passengers. There are no official statistics on how many Haitians have successfully made their way illegally to Puerto Rico, or how many have traveled on to the U.S. mainland. But the trend worries officials in the U.S. and the Dominican Republic, with both countries reporting that arrests of Puerto Rico-bound Haitians have soared. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) | Dieu Nalio Chery

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Haitians have been fleeing their troubled country for years, trying to reach the U.S. or other Caribbean islands by sea or by trekking across the island of Hispaniola to scratch out a living in the Dominican Republic.

But a newly popular route has caught officials in the Caribbean by surprise, taking migrants to a piece of the U.S. much closer to home.

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