SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – Haitians have fled their troubled country for years, attempting to reach the US or other Caribbean islands by heading north across the open sea or 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, one that is taking migrants to a piece of the US much closer to home.

Hundreds of Haitian migrants have made their way to the US territory of Puerto Rico in recent months, finding that if they can make it there without getting arrested, it’s relatively easy to fly on to US cities such as Miami, Boston or New York without even having to show a passport.

“As soon as you’re in Puerto Rico, it’s like you’re in the United States,” said Lolo Sterne, coordinator for Haiti’s Office of Migration.

There are no official statistics on how many Haitians have successfully made their way illegally to Puerto Rico, or how many have travelled on to the US mainland. But the trend worries officials in the US and the Dominican Republic, with both countries reporting a jump in arrests of Puerto Rico-bound Haitians.

Migrants reportedly are paying smugglers US$1,000-US$1,500 for a trip to Puerto Rico, located less than 100 miles east of the island of Hispaniola, which is shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti. At the same time, Dom Rep officials have detained more than 400 Haitians bound for Puerto Rico in the past four months, compared with just a handful annually in previous years, said Victor Pilier, the Dominican Republic’s director of naval intelligence.

“It’s an excessive amount,” said Pilier, who oversaw the capture of 78 Haitians headed to Puerto Rico in late April before sending them back home. “It’s unusual.”

US officials in the past six months captured 352 Haitian migrants who were bound for Puerto Rico or were found on or near the island. Coast Guard statistics show that between October 2010 and September 2011, only 13 such migrants were found, and at most five Puerto Rico-bound Haitians were arrested in the two years before that.

“We’re seeing another route they’re trying to exploit,” said Coast Guard Captain Drew Pearson, who is based in Puerto Rico. “We hadn’t seen these numbers of Haitians in my tenure here.”

The odds of reaching the US mainland directly from Haiti have dropped as the US Coast Guard beefs up patrols by Hamilton class cutters, or what Haitian migrants simply refer to as “Amilton.” Along with trying to sail directly to the US mainland, Haitians in the past attempted to get to the US through long-established smuggling networks on islands including the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos.

“Miami is no longer easy to reach and that’s why Haitians are looking for other places,” said Walky Severian, a boat builder in western Haiti who himself has taken three voyages, including one in 2008 that ended up in Cuba because of stormy weather before he was deported.

Pilier, the Dominican naval officer, said migrant smuggling to the US territory has also become common because Dominican authorities have a harder time patrolling the nation’s southeast coast, which is closer to Puerto Rico and where many smugglers have started launching from.

“We have a stronger presence in the north,” he said. “The east is more vulnerable.”

On top of that, a thriving underground economy in Puerto Rico that has long offered employment to Dominicans is now attracting Haitians.

For Haitians hoping to get to the US mainland, the island of 3.7 million people has a black market that supplies fake passports, driver’s licences and stolen Social Security numbers. In addition, the island’s governor in early March endorsed a proposal to allow immigrants living illegally in the US territory to apply for a provisional driver’s licence. Pilier said that proposal has in fact drawn many migrants to Puerto Rico.

On the black-sand beach in the fishing village of Leogane west of the Haitian capital, groups of men build wooden migrant boats, sawing and hacking away with machetes and picks. The 30-foot-long boats, whose frames resemble the rib cage of a small dinosaur, are purchased by smugglers for around US$12,000 and then taken to northern Haiti to find passengers. One boat builder said he has four or five regular customers who buy the crafts.