Thread: Coastal Border Team Hunts the Sea

Border Security

Coastal Border Team Hunts the Sea

August 25, 2010 - 10:07 AM | by: Adam Housley

With ten-foot waves crashing into the rocky shoreline below, much of the dramatic and majestic California coast is no place to land a boat, let alone at night, but drug smugglers and human traffickers are doing just that...and the numbers are alarming.

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With one month left in their fiscal year, apprehensions by a new federal border team and their local law enforcement partners are approaching 800, that's nearly triple just two years ago. Called the Coastal Border Enforcement Team, or CBET, federal agencies quickly established the new group in direct response to the increased maritime threat along the wide-open 114 mile southern coast of the Golden State.

According to the agents, they will never have enough manpower to shut down our waterfront, or coastline to smugglers and that's why they have partnered with state and local authorities to stop this spike in smuggling along the pacific coast. New technology has also helped them with this incredible task, but as one member of CBET says..."you see how hard it is for Coast Guard and rescuers to find people on the open water who want to be found, now imagine what it's like trying to find these small boats who don't want to be seen and are doing it at night."

To combat this increased threat, the CBET team uses night visions goggles and fans out across beaches, bluffs and stakes out all areas from marina's to boat ramps. They work closely passing intelligence between team members, watching for trends and scanning the waters with night vision goggles. These men know, they are the first and the last line of defense and they obviously take their jobs very seriously.

As we ride along this night, the full moon illuminates the vast sea to our west with an eery glow. It makes sense that the smugglers and drug runners would start using the ocean as an increased pathway, especially as our agents gain more control of the land border than ever before, but on this night, the increased light from the moon slows smuggling activity...at least for a short time. We are told, the boats being used to smuggle drugs and people are mainly the ponga style, which are open and use as many as four outboard motors to race across the water border. The boats are small and can head as far as forty miles off shore before making a run for the coast and doing it under the cover of darkness.

We know through intelligence that the bad guys are going as far as 40 miles off coast, refueling and even lying low until the coast is clear. With cell phones and GPS, meeting someone on the shore can happen within minutes of arrival. Despite this new technology, the boat themselves are as primitive as they come. As one agents says, "sometimes the simplest technology is the best and these boats are as simple as they come."

And as our agents gain control of the land border, the battle moves to the sea, where there are no sensors, fencing, or lights and smugglers can land nearly anywhere. The CBET team says they are needed now more than ever before and will work together to meet this growing threat.

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010 ... z0xe2xmB8C

This is just what Border Patrol Auxiliary does in CA & FL & PR!

If you are interested join in at www.bpaux.org

Ken

Have assisted here for years now and during the past year I'm amazed at how many stories have been posted about such boats landing on our southern California beaches.

Added to Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/article-5599--0-0.html

As Mexico's total collapse worsens in this global economic Armageddon, you can only expect attempts at illegal entry into the United States to increase.

This is why border and coastline security should take a high priority in terms of federal resources allocated now and into the near future.

This first story is so short that it seems like just part of a story, so I posted the following two together.

As US tightens land borders, illegal immigrants look west for open crossings _ to the ocean

Published August 26, 2010

| Associated Press

SAN DIEGO – sulfur fumes or a motor's whirr.

"It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and the haystack is the Pacific Ocean," agent Tim Feige nutes before sunrise marks the end to another uneventful shift.

This is a new frontier for illegal immigrants entering the United States — a roughly 400-square-mile ocean expanse that stretches from Tijuana, Mexico, to Los Angeles. In growing numbers, migrants are gambling their lives at sea as land crossings become even more arduous and likely to end in arrest.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/08/26/ti ... +-+Text%29


Some recent examples of smuggling illegal immigrants on Southern California's coast

Published August 26, 2010

| Associated Press

Migrants are increasingly looking to the Pacific Ocean to enter the United States illegally from Mexico. Marijuana is also being smuggled. Some recent examples, from Department of Homeland Security officials and court records:

—An 18-year-old Guatemalan woman and 34-year-old Mexican man die after their boat overturns in the surf at Torrey Pines State Beach in San Diego on Jan. 16 at 4:15 a.m. Two illegal immigrants from Mexico who allegedly drove the boat are charged with smuggling, including one who told authorities he was to be paid $2,000 for his work.

—Border Patrol agents on horseback arrested four passengers who were dropped on a beach near the San Onofre nuclear power plant, less than an hour before dawn April 14. The driver fled south by boat to Camp Pendleton, but authorities were hot on his trail and arrested 19 others upon landing. All 23 were found to be illegal immigrants from Mexico, including two who were charged with smuggling.

—Coast Guard agents find 394 pounds of marijuana in cellophane-wrapped packages aboard a 23-foot Wellcraft that had run out of gas and was adrift near San Diego April 19 at 2 a.m. Two U.S. citizens aboard are charged with drug smuggling after authorities determine they traveled from Ensenada, Mexico.

—Twenty illegal immigrants from Mexico, one from Guatemala and one from Colombia are arrested at 3:30 a.m. July 16 when their boat landed at Camp Pendleton. Border Patrol agents on land had spotted the boat approaching shore.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/08/26/re ... +-+Text%29

Illegal immigrants find new route to enter United States: the Pacific
By Elliot Spagat
Associated Press / August 29, 2010

SAN DIEGO — The speedboat is about 3 miles offshore when a US Customs and Border Protection agent cuts the engine to drift on the current in quiet darkness, hoping for the telltale signs of immigrant smuggling — a motor’s whirr or sulfur exhaust fumes.

“It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and the haystack is the Pacific Ocean,’’ agent Tim Feige said, minutes before sunrise.

This is a new frontier for illegal immigrants entering the United States — a roughly 400-square-mile ocean expanse that runs from a bullring on the shores of Tijuana, Mexico, to suburban Los Angeles.

In growing numbers, migrants are gambling their lives at sea as land crossings become even more arduous and likely to end in arrest. Sea interdictions and arrests have spiked year-over-year for three years, as enforcement efforts are increased to meet the challenge.

While only a small fraction of border arrests are at sea, authorities say, heightened enforcement on land, and a bigger fence, is making the offshore route more attractive.

The number of Border Patrol agents doubled to more than 20,000 since 2003, and President Obama is dispatching the National Guard after clamor for a crackdown in the desert led to Arizona’s tough new immigration law.

“I think they found that going west through the ocean is probably their best bet,’’ said Michael Carney, deputy special agent in charge of investigations for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego.

US agents arrested 753 suspected illegal immigrants on Southern California shores and seas between October and Aug. 24, up from 400 the previous 12 months and 230 the year before. They spotted 85 watercraft since October, up from 49 during the previous 12 months and 33 the year before.

The smugglers use old, single-engine wooden vessels known in Mexico as pangas. They’re several feet wide and about 25 feet long. If they are found on US waters, they are almost invariably smuggling people or drugs.

US authorities have stepped up sea patrols near the border, forcing pangas loaded with illegal immigrants and sometimes with marijuana farther offshore, with landings farther north.

An abandoned vessel was found in November in Laguna Beach, 85 miles north of Mexico. A boat with 24 people was found 43 miles off the San Diego coast in May.

Six boats have landed at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base, more than 50 miles north of the border, since November, including two that were abandoned. The base, a short hike to Interstate 5, has stepped up security.

Authorities believe smugglers put their passengers ashore and return to Mexico, when possible, to avoid losing their boats and leaving evidence behind. But they also quickly abandon the boats and run for it if they sense they are about to be caught.

Smuggling on California waters dates back to the alcohol trade during Prohibition, but authorities noticed a change in late 2007 when pangas began traveling without lights at night with up to 25 people packed on open decks.

At up to $5,000 a person — roughly twice the fee to cross illegally over land — one overnight trip can generate $100,000.

Some arrests at sea may be a result of heightened enforcement. This year, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department joined in boat patrols on a 32-mile coastal stretch south of Los Angeles.

Only two immigrants are known to have been killed crossing in US waters, their boat overturning off San Diego in January. Two months earlier, eight were rescued atop an overturned boat that was adrift for a day. Smugglers have been arrested on both sides of the border, with those in the United States being sentenced to a year or two in prison.

In Mexico, the boats launch from a poor fishing village named Popotla, about 15 miles south of the border. It is between Playa de Rosarito’s high-rise hotels and condos that cater to American tourists and expatriates and next to the studio where the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic’’ was filmed.

Squatters live in about two dozen shanties crammed on a hillside. There is no electricity, paved road, sewage, or garbage collection. But it is easy to understand why smugglers are drawn to the village. It is out of view from the highway only 200 yards away, and it is the only public boat launching spot on a 50-mile stretch south of the border.

Authorities have failed to pierce the top ranks of smuggling organizations. The low-slung boats, when weighed down with people, float only about one foot above water, making them difficult to see on radar. Night-vision binoculars have limited reach.

“They’re beating us with low-tech,’’ said ICE’s Carney. “I’m not saying they can’t be detected, but I’m saying they’re very hard to detect.’’

www.boston.com