Water Smuggling of People Increases on Pacific Coast

From The New York Times:

Improvements at Land Border Push Smugglers West, to the Pacific

LOS ANGELES — Three Mexican men were charged Friday with smuggling people into the United States after an ill-fated effort to ferry a dozen people to San Diego by boat from an island off Tijuana, Mexico, ended with the vessel adrift for nearly two days.

For years, smugglers have sought to bring people into the United States on boats in the Pacific Ocean, usually hiding among the bountiful pleasure craft off San Diego in the summer. People have also been caught trying to surf, use jet skis and swim in.

But the arrests this week, the authorities said, point to a troubling turn to the prospect of year-round smuggling; some 20 boats have been intercepted or found washed ashore on the San Diego County coast since August. Twenty-six people have been apprehended in those cases, but several more probably made it to their destinations: some have been observed by homeowners coming ashore and leaving their boats behind.

“We have never seen an increase like this in the off- or winter season,” said Michael Unzueta, the agent in charge of the San Diego office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Mr. Unzueta said that more elaborate security on the land border, rife with cameras, sensors and steel fences, was pushing smugglers east into remote terrain and west into the ocean. But it is also possible, he said, that the spike is the result of a newer organization long on ambition but short on marine skills.