As the US-Mexico Land Border Tightens, Focus Turns to Dangerous Sea Crossings

On March 30, maritime law enforcement officials patrolling the ocean southwest of San Diego spotted and approached a suspicious vessel whose occupants were waving white flags to signal distress. The boat had suffered an engine failure and was taking on water, officials said.

On board they found 18 people, including 17 Mexican nationals, two of them minors. The group was rescued in a coordinated effort involving the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Navy, and were turned over to the Border Patrol for repatriation.

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

Such patrols have been conducted off the waters of San Diego for years, with frequent migrant boat landings. But now President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration is spreading to ocean routes, where Coast Guard and border officers have beefed up patrols — even joined by a San Diego-based U.S. Navy destroyer.

“We’re involved in pursuits and see smuggling ventures happening quite frequently, multiple times during the week,” said Coast Guard Senior Chief Peter Nelson, officer in charge of the station in San Diego.

The Southern California Coast Guard 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. Another nine cases were reported in the previous week, involving 33 people.

“We do anticipate that as we continue to lock down the border here and secure it, we will most likely see a greater increase on the maritime,” Acting Chief Patrol Agent Jeffrey Stalnaker of the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector said last month at a news conference in San Ysidro. He lauded ongoing collaboration with U.S. troops, who have bolstered border barriers with miles of concertina wire.

Ramping up enforcement

Through mid-March in fiscal year 2025, which began Oct.1, there were 264 maritime smuggling events resulting in 826 apprehensions, according to data from the U.S. Border Patrol. Maritime events are defined as incidents where migrants are caught in the sea or on shore, officials said.

That is on pace to match the previous fiscal year’s maritime events, in which there were 589 incidents leading to 1,375 apprehensions. The year before that, 736 maritime smuggling cases led to 1,328 apprehensions.

Since Trump took office, federal agencies such as the Coast Guard have ramped up their presence in air and on sea near the southwestern border. “We essentially tripled the amount of resources,” Nelson said.

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

Since the number of on-land migrant encounters in the San Diego Border Patrol sector has plummeted, that agency has been able to devote more staff to conduct patrols in additional areas, including along the San Diego coast, spokesperson Gerardo Gutiérrez said.

The 7,180 land migrant encounters across the Southwest in March was down 96% from the same month a year earlier, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Daily apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border have dipped to about 230 a day, officials said.

In February, the most recent month for which regional figures are available, the San Diego sector recorded 1,650 migrant apprehensions, a 95% drop from the same period last year.

Local immigration advocates noted that some migrants who once planned to turn themselves in at the U.S.-Mexico land border to seek asylum might consider other routes because of the Trump administration’s border security measures. In fact, migrant encounters began to decline in June, when then-President Joe Biden issued an executive order limiting asylum.

“Since (crossing between ports of entry) is no longer a possibility, people are now looking for very dangerous ways to enter the United States, which includes maritime crossings,” said Pedro Ríos, director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S.-Mexico Border Program.

Nelson, the Coast Guard chief, underlined the risks. He said that vessels are usually overloaded with people, without any safety measures. Border Patrol officials said the most common vessels used by smugglers include pangas, pleasure watercraft and even jet skis.

“It’s extremely dangerous,” he said. “Oftentimes they’re operating at night, unlit, in very adverse weather conditions.”

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

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

One component of the increased enforcement has been the U.S. Navy, which recently deployed the San Diego-based destroyer USS Spruance to help “restore territorial integrity at the U.S. southern border,” according to a U.S. Northern Command announcement.

USS Spruance is one of two U.S. Navy destroyers — usually tasked with defending nuclear-powered aircraft carriers against ballistic and cruise missiles — that have been sent after smugglers. The USS Gravely has been deployed to the Gulf of Mexico to assist with border operations. Both Navy ships had a Coast Guard law enforcement detachment on board.

The price to cross the border

Three recent interceptions of vessels near San Diego reveal the stakes for smugglers and their passengers.

The recent interceptions resulted in federal charges against five suspected smugglers and five people charged with entering the country after previously being deported. One of the alleged smugglers told Border Patrol agents he had been promised payment of $1,400 for each of the 14 migrants he successfully brought across the border. Migrants who spoke with investigators said they made deals to be smuggled into the U.S. for as little as $3,000 and as much as $17,000.

“In many of the cases, people are forced to sell their properties, borrow money or go into debt to cover these costs,” Ríos, from American Friends Service Committee, said. “It is something unimaginable because not only people have the need to cross, but they also have to deal with the debt for not having that money.”

Around 3 a.m. on March 20, a Coast Guard vessel intercepted a panga with 16 people on board somewhere off the coast of San Diego, according to a criminal complaint filed in San Diego federal court. The panga’s captain, who was working with his brother, initially tried to outrun the Coast Guard ship, but the panga broke apart as he sped through choppy seas.

Officials eventually rescued all those who had been in the boat, detained them and transferred them to Border Patrol custody, the complaint said.

Migrants who spoke with Border Patrol investigators said they boarded the vessel in Rosarito. One woman said her husband negotiated the deal to smuggle her into the U.S. and agreed to pay roughly $17,000 if she arrived without being caught. A man said he agreed to pay nearly $15,000 for him and his wife to be brought over.

One of the smugglers told investigators he agreed to captain the boat for about $10,000; the captain’s brother, who was helping, was to be paid $1,400 for each of the 14 migrants on board, or almost $20,000, according to the complaint. The brother said he previously conducted four successful smuggling operations.

In the early evening of March 23, authorities intercepted two more migrant smuggling vessels, the first near the jetty in Mission Beach and the second several miles off the coast.

Border Patrol agents conducting a routine patrol of Mission Bay stopped the first boat as it entered the jetty from open water after noticing four people dressed identically in white long-sleeve shirts, blue life jackets and matching hats, according to the complaint. The people on the boat allegedly tried to avoid eye contact when the agents approached asking who was the captain.

The agents eventually detained all six people on the boat, arresting the alleged captain and a man who had been previously deported, according to the complaint. Migrants told investigating agents they boarded the boat in Rosarito and agreed to pay amounts ranging from $5,000 to $13,000.

Less than two hours later, a Coast Guard vessel patrolling off the coast of San Diego intercepted a small boat with 19 people on board, according to a criminal complaint. Border Patrol agents later arrested the suspected captain and two migrants who had allegedly been previously deported from the U.S.

Four migrants on board that vessel told Border Patrol agents the group launched from Ensenada and they agreed to pay $3,000 to $15,000 to be smuggled, according to the complaint.

Another man told investigators he agreed to pay $11,000, and that during the journey he helped the captain by switching out one empty gas canister for a full one. But his account was contradicted by one of the migrants on the boat, who described the man as “the assistant who supported (the captain) throughout the event,” according to the complaint.

Prosecutors charged him with the same count as the alleged captain.

_____

©2025 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Story Continues