Illegal maritime crossings are on the rise as the federal government tightens land crossings, according to some California lawmakers.
Dozens of illegal immigrants were smuggled into the United States from Mexico on boats in six separate events within a week, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Between March 3-9, 31 illegal immigrants were smuggled into the county from the San Diego coast.
“These unlawful crossings are extremely dangerous—overloaded vessels and unpredictable surf often lead to tragedy,” the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday in an X post. “Don’t go by sea.”
The USCG’s Maritime Security and Safety Team Los Angeles/Long Beach intercepted nine illegal immigrants aboard a 20-foot boat approximately seven miles southwest of San Diego’s Point Loma on March 9, the agency said in a statement. The nine illegal immigrants were taken into custody and transferred to the U.S. Border Patrol.
Days before, guardsmen aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Haddock interdicted 21 illegal immigrants aboard a 25-foot boat approximately 20 miles west of Point Loma. All 21 were taken into custody and transferred to the U.S. Border Patrol.
California local and state representatives say there is a rise in illegal maritime crossings in the state, crediting the increase to the Trump administration’s success in stymying the flow of land crossings.
“We have seen this in San Diego repeatedly,” State Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) told The Epoch Times. “Our local news stations cover it every other day. This morning in La Jolla another boat was found, in Pacific Beach another boat was found, Mission Bay, another boat was found.”
DeMaio says that the U.S. Coast Guard is not optimized to patrol the seas for illegal crossings.
“They have a whole bunch of other missions that they have to address, and so they weren’t prepared for this,” DeMaio said. “It really is like the perfect storm of weakness, and the cartels know that. And that’s why they’re going to this mode, and it’s going to continue until we can get resources and government support.”
DeMaio said that lifeguards, the Harbor Police, and other state and local government officials have their hands tied under the sanctuary state law. “And so a lifeguard can be terminated from their position for calling border patrol or ICE under the sanctuary state,” he said. “That’s how insane this is.”
DeMaio wants the Coast Guard to implement more robust practices along the California coast to stop this trend.
“We’re hoping that headquarters can push a bit more on the Coast Guard here locally to get them to adopt some of the same protocols and practices as Florida because there seems to be a much better capability to address this in Florida,” he said, noting that perhaps that can be credited to the history of crossings from Cuba to Florida.
The U.S. Coast Guard did not return a request for comment before time of publication.
San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond appeared on Fox Business to highlight the increase in maritime illegal crossing attempts, crediting the fact that land crossings are down 94 percent since February 2024, according to Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks in an exclusive interview with CBS News.
“We have to be able to stop this,” Desmond told the outlet last week. “And unfortunately, it’s making California unsafe, and the rest of the country, because these people, if they do make shore, can just walk into our neighborhoods free and clear and just disappear, and we don’t know who they are or where they came from.”
Epoch Times reporter Brad Jones contributed to this report.