Feds target surge in water-borne smuggling
Boat discovered at Torrey Pines this week is latest example
By DAN SIMMONS - Staff Writer | Wednesday, July 9, 2008 12:16 PM PDT ∞

Coastal interceptions (smugglers) in San Diego County. (North County Times graphic) More illegal immigrants are crossing from Mexico to San Diego County by sea this year and more are getting caught, federal law enforcement officials say.

Officials with several law enforcement agencies pointed to an increasingly tighter land border as the underlying cause for the spike in water crossings, most of which take place aboard rickety boats that smugglers readily abandon.

"It's a measure of the level of desperation smugglers are experiencing since the land border (between the U.S. and Mexico) has gotten so tight," said Vince Bond, spokesman for the San Diego office of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Other means of skirting the border, especially tunneling, also have seen a significant increase this year, Bond said.

The latest example of the surge came Monday morning when an unmanned 26-foot fishing boat suspected by federal authorities to be smuggling illegal immigrants washed ashore near Torrey Pines, officials say.

Through June, federal agents have seized 11 suspected smuggler boats in San Diego County waters and arrested 50 people aboard them for illegal entry or smuggling, according to Juan Munoz-Torres of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Air and Marine Branch.

Illegal drugs were found on just two of the boats, continuing a trend toward more human smuggling and less drug smuggling by sea, he said.

The mid-year numbers show a stepped-up pace over 2007 when agents seized 17 suspected human smuggler boats in county waters and arrested 85 people related to the smuggling, according to Munoz-Torres. That was up from 2006 when nine boats were seized and 29 people were arrested at sea, he said.

On the water, smuggling activity has been affected by high fuel prices, said Keley Hill, the border protection's director of marine operations in San Diego. The cost of filling a boat's tank has resulted in fewer legal boats on the water, making it harder for smuggler boats to blend in among the sea traffic during the day, Hill said.

In an attempt to thwart the patrol boats, Hill said smugglers are increasingly making their runs at night, usually in boats bought at auction for about $1,500. The boats are half as long and a tenth as powerful as the 39-foot, 900-horsepower "go-fast boats" the federal agents drive.

The smugglers typically run lights-out to avoid detection and bob in the swells to hide, he said.

Their runs have become more organized and lucrative due to the increased demand, officials say. Just two years ago, Hill said, the going rate was about $900 per rider. Now, he said it's between $2,400 and $4,400.

The boats usually carry four to eight immigrants, he said, giving smugglers a profit ranging from $10,000 to $35,000 for a night's journey.

The most popular landing spot for the smuggler boats continues to be an approximately 5-mile stretch of shoreline from Dog Beach in Del Mar to Torrey Pines, Hill said. Most of the seized boats have been in the North County waters or beaches, although Imperial Beach also gets its share, he said.

The North County landings signal longer journeys in that have been the norm since last fall, Munoz-Torres said.

Prior to then, the smugglers "would go one mile out to sea, turn toward the coast and land in San Diego," he said. But beefed-up staffing since last summer has put more federal agents and boats on the water, he said, and led to a longer arc by smugglers.

"Now they go 10, 15, 20 miles before they turn, so they end up farther north," Munoz-Torres said.

The rise in water-borne smuggling has been noticeable since the May 2006 launch of Operation Jump Start along the San Diego-Tijuana border, which put more Border Patrol agents and National Guard troops on the U.S. border, Munoz-Torres said.

Other recent measures have tightened the land border even more, Bond said. Starting in February, U.S. citizens were no longer able to pass north through the border without a government-issued identification. That ended the practice of allowing people to vouch for their resident status without having to show any identification.

The agency also has dramatically stepped up background checks of immigrants at the border, Bond said, which has made it harder for immigrants with previous criminal records or immigration holds to gain entry.

With the increasing squeeze at the land border, he said, more smugglers are taking to the seas in the old boats ---- and putting the lives of their passengers at risk, he said.

"It's certainly a dangerous way of bringing people into the United States," he said.

Contact staff writer Dan Simmons at (760) 740-5426 or dsimmons@nctimes.com.

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