DERBY 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.
Romanians seeking to enter the U.S. or Canada need pre-approved visas. They do not need visas to enter Mexico.
Once in Canada, the asylum seekers are freed in most cases from detention while their asylum claims are pending, a process that can take years. At the same time, they are eligible to receive public assistance benefits.
The appeal of the border crossing between Derby Line and Stanstead, as opposed to other points along the long border with Canada, is apparent.
The two towns are separate only in name and country otherwise, they are essentially one community. The border runs through yards and buildings. Until recently, people could freely walk across quiet residential streets to visit neighbors in another country.
Since Sept. 11, many of those streets have been blocked off and residents required to pass through border posts. It's not entirely clear how Derby Line and Stanstead became the focus for Gypsies, but until repeated crossings like the one in October led Canada to beef up security on its side, agents didn't have the resources available to their American counterparts.
In 2010, 85 people crossed the border illegally at Stanstead, according to statistics from the Canada Border Services Agency. In 2011, that number rose to 168, and so far this year, it is 260.
Gina Csanyi-Robah, the executive director of the Roma Community Center in Toronto, said before Wednesday's announcement that she was aware of the border crossings between Vermont and Quebec only because of media inquiries. She doubted it was an organized smuggling system.
"This community works by word of mouth. So if you have one family going and finding it safe to claim asylum, you can guarantee there will be 10 families behind them, the relatives, the friends. And those 10 families are going to tell another 10 families each," she said.
University of Vermont anthropologist Jonah Steinberg, who has studied Roma culture in Europe and North America, said the movement fits longstanding patterns.
"The coverage has been focused on what's bad about this. Another thing you might be seeing is a kind of very well-informed mobilization of opportunities and possibilities for movement," Steinberg said. "I think Roma are very skilled at moving across the world and at finding opportunities for new places to live. They can move pretty quickly and pretty easily."
For the Roma in Canada, life is less oppressive than elsewhere, Csanyi-Robah said, but she believes the Canadian government is changing its immigration policies with the specific intent of excluding Roma. Aside from the government policies, Roma have been well received in Canada, she said.
Canadian officials said many Romanians have arrived indebted to a criminal organization and in some cases engaged in crime to pay back the smuggling debts. Twelve have been charged since arriving in Canada.
Thirty of the irregular arrivals have been arrested under newly enacted immigration laws that allow for the mandatory detention of those suspected to have arrived in Canada via smugglers, Kenney said.
Kenney declined to identify their ethnicity but said groups of Romanians illegally crossed into Canada between February and October. He noted that Canada has one of the most generous immigration systems in the world but won't tolerate those who abuse or cheat it.
"We are sending a strong message to those who are thinking of using the services of criminal human smugglers to sneak their way into Canada: Don't do it," Kenney said.
Roma communities are known for their insularity, and authorities did not make any asylum seekers available for comment.
While Derby Line is the Canadian crossing of choice, funnel points along the Mexican border have shifted. In 2010, most Romanians were apprehended in the Tucson, Arizona, sector; in 2011, it was split between Tucson and the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. In 2012, the Imperial Valley of Southern California became the favorite crossing site, with 509 Romanian apprehensions there so far this year.
Statistics from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show that 384 Romanians were apprehended along the Mexican border in fiscal year 2010, 575 in 2011 and 901 in 2012. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have noticed the spike.
The agents apprehending them know they are dealing with Gypsies, said ICE's Mack. And they are aware the Romanians are headed to Canada.
In the October crossing in Stanstead, Nicholas Dostie, the tow truck driver hired to take the California van back to the border, said the men, women and children were carried back in a caravan of Mountie cruisers.
Once at the border, officials said, the Gypsies began the process of applying for asylum.
Though it seems like a long detour to go from Europe to Mexico and across a continent to reach asylum, Csanyi-Robah said she could understand the pull.
"For people that are desperate for something," she said, "it's not a long route for a better life."
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Gillies reported from Toronto.
