Three smuggling boats packed with illegal immigrants, including some with criminal histories, attempted to reach California’s coast this month before being intercepted by federal authorities, The Daily Wire has learned.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Air and Marine Operations (AMO) arrested 60 people, some of whom had rap sheets that included DUI, felony hit-and-run, making false police reports, drug possession, active warrants for resisting arrest, trespassing, burglary, possession of burglary tools, receiving stolen property, drug trafficking, aggravated assault with a weapon, and domestic violence, AMO told The Daily Wire.
“These interdictions show the great lengths dangerous criminals will go to avoid apprehension, including taking to the open ocean in unsafe, overcrowded vessels,” Air and Marine Operations Southwest Region Executive Director Hunter Robinson said.
“Their desperation puts lives at risk. Our crews are dedicated to stopping these dangerous individuals far from shore to keep our communities safe,” he said.
On April 17, agents intercepted a 24-foot vessel on April 17 near San Clemente Island, apprehending 13 illegal migrants, including seven men, five women, and one juvenile girl. The group was transported to Ballast Point Naval Base in San Diego for processing.
The next day, agents located another vessel and intercepted the boat near San Nicolas Island. In total, federal agents apprehended 29 Mexican nationals. The Coast Guard brought the illegal immigrants to Newport Harbor, where they handed them over to Border Patrol.
On April 21, the Coast Guard, along with a CBP AMO aircrew, stopped a 25-foot cuddy cabin boat filled with 18 Mexican illegal migrants. Authorities spotted the boat the day before off the coast of Ensenada, Mexico.
The group was handed off to Border Patrol.
Since President Donald Trump sealed off the U.S.-Mexico border, smugglers have grown desperate to find new ways to keep their profits. Human smuggling by cartels became more lucrative than drug trafficking under the Biden administration.
One way smugglers are trying to hold on to their cash cow is by taking to the waterways.
Coast Guard Capt. Jason Hagen, who is the Southwest District chief of enforcement, told The Daily Wire in November that authorities were seeing an increase in smuggling interdictions.
“As you lock down the land border, the cartels will need to make their money, so they push to the maritime, to the water side. And, unfortunately, there is no border wall in the ocean; we’re challenged with the tyranny of distance,” Hagen said at the time.
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