TIJUANA, Mexico — The men flocked to the cafe under the sign with the cedar tree, symbol of their Mideast home. In this alien borderland, it was the beacon that led to an Arab "brother" who would help them complete their journey from Lebanon into America.
They would come to find Salim Boughader Mucharrafille -- the cafe owner who catered to some of Tijuana's more affluent denizens, including workers at the U.S. consulate. His American customers were unaware that the boss of La Libanesa cafe ran a less reputable business on the side.
Until his arrest in December 2002, Boughader smuggled about 200 Lebanese compatriots into the United States, including sympathizers of Hezbollah, designated a terrorist organization by U.S. authorities. One client worked for a Hezbollah-owned television network, which glorifies suicide bombers and is itself on an American terrorist watch list.
"If they had the cedar on their passport, you were going to help them," Boughader told Associated Press from a Mexico City prison, where he faced charges after a human-smuggling conviction in the United States. "What's the crime in bringing your brother so that he can get out of a war zone?"
A report released by the Sept. 11 commission staff last year examining how terrorists travel the world cited Boughader as the only "human smuggler with suspected links to terrorists" convicted to date in the United States.
But he is not unique.
After Boughader was locked up, other smugglers continued to help Hezbollah-affiliated migrants in their effort to illicitly enter from Tijuana, a U.S. immigration investigator said in Mexican court documents obtained by the AP.
Another smuggling network that is controlled by Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebel group -- a U.S.-designated terrorism organization -- tried sneaking four Tigers over the California-Mexico border not long after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Steven Schultz, of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The four were caught.
An AP investigation found these are just some of the many pipelines in Latin America and Canada that have illegally channeled thousands of people into the United States from "special-interest" countries -- those identified by the U.S. government as sponsors or supporters of terrorism.
The AP reviewed hundreds of pages of court indictments, affidavits, congressional testimony and government reports, and conducted dozens of interviews in Mexico and the United States to determine how migrants from countries with terrorist ties were brought illegally to America -- and how the smugglers they hired operated.
