Gypsies Take Curious Route Through United States to Asylum

Canadian authorities announced Wednesday that they had broken up a circuitous but ingenious human smuggling ring that shuttled Romanians 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.

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 imprisoned and executed in concentration camps during World War II.

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.

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.

Romanians seeking to enter the U.S. or Canada need pre-approved visas. They do not need visas to enter Mexico.
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2012/12/06/gypsies-take-curious-route-through-us-to-asylum