Coast Guards in Southern California watch the influx of immigrant intersections on boats. And with them, more foreigners from the US enemy.
Over the past 90 days, the Coast Guard has recorded encounters of about 200 immigrant ships near the San Diego coast, equivalent to about two immigrant ship interventions per day, officials told Fox News Digital.
More Daily Immigrant Ship Engagement
“We see countless elderly people, men, women and children,” Coast Guard District 11 Captain Jason Hagen told Fox News Digital. “We are beginning to see an increase in other nationalities. This is… a national security concern because your economy Mexicans aren't just wanting to come to the US for work. They are also bad actors coming from other countries. We've seen nationalities including Chinese, Russian and Uzbekistan.[i],Pakistan[i]. It's really everywhere. ”
Hagen added that 10 or 15 years ago, most boats carried immigrants from Mexico.
The Coast Guard captain attributes the recent increase in boat encounters and “landing” encounters to an increase in land border security under the Trump administration when coastal guards spot a beach boat in abandoned life jackets.
“What you see in the news certainly affects the marine environment,” Hagen explained. “It's like squeezing balloons. When you squeeze balloons, the air pushes to the other side, right? Well, that's the same thing happening in the migration stream. They're locking up pretty good land borders… They used to get thousands a day. Now, they're now hundreds of down a day. So immigrants have to go somewhere. Smugglers need to move the surgery somewhere. And we're starting to see an increase in the maritime environment.”
Hagen also noted the dangers of marine smuggling activities.
“Last night… we had 16 people on board via a 20-mile ship offshore. [were] Two days at sea without food or water. …If we hadn't found them, they could have just kept drifting west and further towards the Pacific Ocean. ”
In February, Coast Guard San Diego announced that Cutterwesh crews had offloaded more than $275 million in cocaine in San Diego.
Off-roading was the result of interactions between 11 separate drug smuggling containers between December and February.
Incentives for Smugglers and Immigrants
California Republican Rep. Carl DeMaio told Fox News Digital that immigrants will be incentivized by taxpayer-funded benefits, such as housing, travel and food, when they arrive in Golden State.
On the back, smugglers are incentivized by the large payments made to ensure that immigrants are escorted across borders, or in this case, to the US coast.
“Human trafficking is an evil company. You have these cartels and coyotes… to these illegal immigrants, pay me $6,000 and I'll take you and your family to the US,” DeMaio explained, adding, “This is a multi-billion dollar industry that preys on people.”
A California representative added that the victims of the smuggling company were immigrants and US taxpayers who were hurt along the journey.
“It's a dangerous journey and is also very predatory because many of these individuals can't afford $6,000 to come across the land. We've been told by the Border Patrol that the cost of passing through the boat's waterway could be $12.[,000] To $15,000,” Demaio said.
“It's dangerous too, because people are dead. People had to be rescued in non-seaworthy boats. So in all the fixations that California Democrats have in protecting people and regulating dangerous transport and dangerous industries, they are the facilitators of our time of the evil corporate facilitators.”
Non-cooperation with San Diego ice
Meanwhile, local San Diego officials have made a recent move to block local officials from working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement Cooperation (ICE).
The San Diego Board of Supervisors recently voted in favor of a resolution that the county would not provide support or cooperation to the ice.
San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez pushed back in a statement that her office has its own rules.
“The Board of Supervisors has not set a Sheriff's Office policy. Sheriff will set a Sheriff's Office policy as an independently elected official,” her office said in a statement in December.
“As a San Diego County sheriff, my number one priority is to protect the safety and well-being of all residents in our diverse areas. Protecting undocumented immigrant rights is important, but equally important to ensure that crime victims are not overlooked or ignored in the process,” she said.
Hagen said the influx of migrant ships along the San Diego coast did not overwhelm the security guards, and in fact, shed the spotlight on the issue and brought more resources to the team.
He said the Coast Guard wants to strengthen its presence on the South Coastline “to protect the security of the US border and territorial integrity.”
President Donald Trump's recent immigration-related executive orders have declared a national emergency at the border, stopped refugees resettlement, ordered an asylum-free removal process, rebuilding the border wall and deployed troops at the border.
In the first nine days of Trump's second term, Ice arrested more than 7,400 illegal immigrants and placed nearly 6,000 ice detainees in individuals believed to be illegally in the country.
Adam Shaw of Fox News contributed to this report.
