Iraqis, other from the Middle East being smuggled into New Mexico

FBI agents confirm that Iraqis and others from the Middle East are being smuggled across the Rio Grande from Mexico into New Mexico.

The Washington DC Joint Terrorism Task Force has issued an FBI intelligence report saying an illegal organization has been bringing Iraqis across the border illegally for more than a year.

The FBI report, issued in early July, said the operation had smuggled Mexicans, but now smuggles “Iraqi or other Middle Eastern individuals" because it was more lucrative. Each individual is charged a fee of $20,000 to $25,000 to be brought across the border. Those being smuggled would "gather at a house on the Mexican side” of the border and then cross the Rio Grande into the U.S., the FBI document said, adding that "unidentified individuals” then transport them to train stations in El Paso, Texas or Belen, New Mexico.

If policy hadn’t changed, the Iraqis might be seen as those desperate to leave a war zone. Until this year, the United States has kept its doors all but shut to the estimated two million refugees trying to escape the violence in Iraq, taking in less than 800 Iraqi refugees. However, in May, the Bush administration pledged to legally resettle 7,000 Iraqi refugees here before January.