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Last Updated: Oct 28th, 2008 - 17:57:18 |
SAN DIEGO, California (Reuters) - Mexican smugglers are cramming illegal immigrants and drugs into boats and ferrying them to California by sea to try to beat the tightened security on the U.S. land border, authorities say.
U.S. Coast Guard and police officers have nabbed 24 vessels packed with contraband in Pacific coastal waters off southern California since October 1 2007, more than twice the number stopped during the same period of the previous year.
Security on the porous southwest border is a hot-button topic in this election year, and both Republican John McCain and his Democratic rival Barack Obama have pledged to do more to curb illegal crossings.
The rise in maritime smuggling follows the addition of more fencing, cameras, sensors and police on the southwest border in recent months. This has made the ocean an attractive alternative route, police say.
"Smuggling organizations react to the security ratcheted up on the land border ... they figure right now that going by water is their best opportunity," said Mike Carney, the deputy special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in San Diego. "This is a banner year for them ... the busiest in recent memory."
The smugglers are taking to the ocean in open fishing boats, known as "pangas" in Spanish, as well as using pleasure craft to chug up to the San Diego area through busy coastal waters from Mexico, Carney said.
In one foiled smuggling attempt in late July, a U.S. Coast Guard crew caught 20 Mexican illegal immigrants in an overloaded fishing boat several miles off the San Diego coast.
Days earlier authorities arrested five men and seized a catamaran cruiser carrying almost 5,000 pounds of marijuana hidden in a specially constructed roof compartment of the boat, which broke down at sea.
Other recent arrests include those of nine Mexicans on July 14, in a panga in the surf at Imperial Beach, a few miles south of San Diego. Three Mexican men were nabbed with 13 bales of pot in a launch a brief sea chase on July 26.
NOT SEA WORTHY
Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and tons of drugs are smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border each year in an illicit trade worth billions of dollars.
Immigration and Customs says the trafficking from Mexico and beyond are staged by several smuggling organizations along the Baja California coastline south of Tijuana. From there they ferried a few miles north toward the California shoreline.
Aside from defying border security, authorities say the smugglers risk the lives of their passengers -- many of whom are nonswimmers -- whom they take miles out to sea, often in poorly equipped and badly maintained boats.
In one incident in March, a launch crammed with 14 Mexicans and a Salvadoran broke down and drifted for two days before a Coast Guard crew picked them up. Some were reported to be dehydrated and suffering sunburn.
The group of 20 migrants arrested in late July was found 18 miles out to sea in an open boat, without essential safety equipment.
"We are talking about a vessel without any navigation gear, they had no food or water and no life jackets, and no marine communications gear." said Cmdr. Danny LeBlanc of the U.S. Coast Guard in San Diego.
"It's a significant safety concern ... and we ask for the help of the public to identify boats that are suspicious."
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