Thread: CA-Smugglers Stow Migrants on Deserted Island

Smugglers stow migrants on deserted island

Human traffickers are hiding illegal immigrants on a deserted island off San Diego, a local news station reports.

Channel 10 News traveled there with a humanitarian group Desert Angels, which leaves food and water on "Smuggle Island" in the northern part of Mexico's Coronado Islands to provide sustenance for illegal immigrants smuggled into the United States illegally.

The group's members told the station that when smugglers are worried about getting caught by the U.S. Coast Guard or when weather is bad, they leave illegal immigrants on the island stranded for days.

When they think it's safer, smugglers then transport the illegal immigrants into U.S. territory via small "panga" boats that cross into San Diego in the middle of the night.

Desert Angels member Rafael Hernandez told the station his group found five illegal immigrants who were abandoned on the island without any food or water.

Illegal entries into the country are down overall, according to the Department of Homeland Security, but more illegal immigrants are using boats or "pangas" to try to enter the U.S.

Since border control has tightened over the last year, smugglers and lone border-crossers now try more remote and treacherous crossings to avoid capture.

Hundreds of illegal immigrants died last year trying to cross into Arizona. This past summer, so many bodies of would-be illegal immigrants turned up in the desert, that authorities needed a refrigerated truck to store them all.

As Mexico's drug cartels have become more powerful, they have solidified their hold on the illegal human smuggling market.

People seeking to enter America illegally used to turn to an unorganized network of thousands of "coyotes" who would guide immigrants over the border in exchange for a fee.

Now, drug cartels usher an estimated 176,000 illegal immigrants per year into the United States.

Experts say that the cartels' involvement means that these illegal immigrants are much more vulnerable to financial exploitation, abandonment and death.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20 ... ted-island

Related:
Deserted islands Being Used by Illegal Immigrants:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopic-217614-0.html