While the American-Mexico border is tightening, the development is transformed into dangerous maritime passages

March 30, Maritime officers responsible for the application of laws Patrolling the ocean southwest of San Diego spotted and approached a suspect ship whose occupants waved white flags to report distress. The boat had undergone engine failure and took water, officials said.

On board, they found 18 people, including 17 Mexican nationals, including two minors. The group was rescued in a coordinated effort involving the American Coast Guard, customs and protection of American borders and the American navy, and were given to the border patrol for repatriation.

Passengers were one of the hundreds of migrants apprehended at sea in recent months, a scenario that the federal authorities expect to become more common while the Trump administration tightens the borders of the land across the Southwest.

Such patrols have been carried out on San Diego waters for years, with landing of frequent migrant boats. But now, President Donald Trump’s repression against illegal immigration spreads to ocean roads, where the coastal and borders officers have strengthened patrols – even joined by a destroyer from the American navy based in San Diego.

“We are involved in activities and we see smuggling companies that occur quite frequently, several times during the week,” said senior chief of the coastal guard Peter Nelson, officer responsible for the San Diego station.

The Southern Coastal Guard of California recorded nine maritime smuggling incidents just in the last week of March, involving 60 people, according to data shared by the agency on the social media platform X. Nine other cases were reported the previous week, involving 33 people.

“We plan that when we continue to lock the border here and secure it, we will most likely see a greater increase in the Maritime,” the acting chief agent, Jeffrey Stalnaker in the San Diego sector of the border patrol last month, at a press conference in San Ysidro. He praised the current collaboration with the American troops, which strengthened the border barriers with miles of concertina thread.

Application of the law

Until the mid-March 2025, which began on October 1, 264 maritime smuggling events led to 826 apprehensions, according to data from the American border patrol. Maritime events are defined as incidents where migrants are taken in the sea or on shore, officials said.

It’s on the pace to match Maritime events for the previous yearin which there were 589 incidents leading to 1,375 apprehensions. The previous year, 736 cases of maritime smuggling led to 1,328 apprehensions.

Since Trump took office, federal agencies such as the Coast Guard accelerated their presence in the air and at sea near the southwest border. “We have mainly tripled the quantity of resources,” said Nelson.

The regional agency district diverted planes, cutters, boats and crews to the southern border, officials said.

Since the number of migrants on land in the San Diego border patrol sector has dropped, this agency has been able to devote more staff to carry patrols in additional areas, especially along the San Diego coast, said spokesperson Gerard Guérrez.

The 7,180 meetings of terrestrial migrants across the Southwest in March dropped by 96% compared to the same month a year earlier, according to customs and the protection of American borders. The daily apprehensions along the American-Mexican border fell to around 230 per day, officials said.

In February, the last month for which regional figures were available, the San Diego sector recorded 1,650 apprehensions by migrants, a drop of 95% compared to the same period last year.

Local immigration defenders noted that certain migrants who were planning to go to the American-mexical land border to seek asylum could consider other routes due to the border security measures of the Trump administration. In fact, migrant meetings began to decline in June, when the president of the time, Joe Biden, published a decree limiting asylum.

“Since then (crossing the entrance ports) has not been a possibility, people are now looking for very dangerous means to enter the United States, which include sea passages,” said Pedro Ríos, director of the US border border program of the American Committee for the Services of American friends.

Nelson, the head of the Coast Guard, stressed the risks. He said that ships are generally overloaded with people, without any safety measure. Officials of the border patrol said that the most common ships used by smugglers include panga, pleasure motorcycles and even jet ski.

“It’s extremely dangerous,” he said. “Often, they work at night, unlit, in very unfavorable weather conditions.”

In January, a 57 -year -old woman from Mexico drowned when the alleged smuggling boat that she was driving in a heavy surf off Ocean Beach. More than 20 people were swept away in the water.

One person died in a maritime smuggling incident in 2024 and 13 people in 2023, according to Border Patrol.

An element of the increased application was the US Navy, which recently deployed the destructive of San Diego Uss Sprance to help “restore territorial integrity to the South American border”, according to an announcement from the Northern Command.

USS SPRANCE is one of the two destroyers of the American navy – generally responsible for defending nuclear propulsion aircraft carriers against ballistic and cruise – that were sent after the smugglers. The USS has seriously been deployed in the Gulf of Mexico to help border operations. The two navy ships had a detachment from the Coast Guard’s law enforcement on board.

The price to cross the border

Three recent interceptions of ships near San Diego reveal the challenges of smugglers and their passengers.

Recent interceptions led to federal accusations against five alleged smugglers and five people responsible for entering the country after being expelled before. One of the alleged smugglers said Agents of the border patrol He had been promised to pay $ 1,400 for each of the 14 migrants he brought through the border. Migrants who spoke with investigators said they had transactions to be introduced in smuggling in the United States for as little as $ 3,000 and up to $ 17,000.

“In many cases, people are forced to sell their properties, borrow money or go into debt to cover these costs,” Ríos told the US services committee. “It is something unimaginable because not only people need to cross, but they also have to face the debt so as not to have this money.”

Around 3 a.m. on March 20, a coastal guard ship intercepted a panga with 16 people on board somewhere off the coast of San Diego, according to a criminal complaint filed before the Federal Court of San Diego. The captain of Panga, who worked with his brother, initially attempted to go beyond the coastal guard ship, but the panga separated while he was walking in the agitated seas.

The officials finally rescued all those who had been in the boat, held them and transferred them to the guarding of the border patrol, said the complaint.

The migrants who spoke with investigators from the border patrol declared that they went on board the ship to Rosarito. A woman said her husband had negotiated the agreement to bring her in smuggling in the United States and agreed to pay $ 17,000 if she arrived without being taken. A man said he agreed to pay nearly $ 15,000 for him and his wife to be brought back.

One of the smugglers told investigators that he had accepted the boat from captain for around $ 10,000; The captain’s brother, who helped, was to be paid $ 1,400 for each of the 14 migrants on board, nearly $ 20,000, according to the complaint. The brother said that he had previously carried out four successful smuggling operations.

In the early evening of March 23, the authorities intercepted two other migrant smuggling ships, the first near the Beach mission pier and the second several kilometers from the coast.

The agents of the border patrol leading a mission routine patrol Bay stopped the first boat as it entered the pier from the free water after noticing four people dressed identically in long -sleeved sleeves, blue life vests and matching hats, according to the complaint. The inhabitants of the boat would have tried to avoid visual contact when the agents approached who was the captain.

The agents finally arrested the six people on the boat, arresting the alleged captain and a man who had already been expelled, according to the complaint. The migrants told agents investigating that they went on the boat to Rosarito and had agreed to pay amounts ranging from $ 5,000 to $ 13,000.

Less than two hours later, a ship from the Coast Guard who is patrolling the coast of San Diego intercepted a small boat with 19 people on board, according to a criminal complaint. Later, agents of the border patrol arrested the alleged captain and two migrants who were allegedly expelled from the United States

Four migrants on board that the ship told the border patrol agents that the group had been launched from Ensenada and that they agreed to pay $ 3,000 to $ 15,000 to be introduced in smuggling, according to the complaint.

Another man told investigators that he had agreed to pay $ 11,000, and that during the trip, he helped the captain changing an empty gas cartridge for a full cartridge. But his story was contradicted by one of the migrants of the boat, who described the man as “the assistant who supported (the captain) throughout the event”, according to the complaint.

The prosecutors charged him with the same chief as the alleged captain.

Originally published: April 6, 2025 at 6:00 a.m.