Improvements at Land Border Push Smugglers West, to Pacific
Improvements at Land Border Push Smugglers West, to the Pacific
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By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: March 15, 2008
LOS ANGELES — Three Mexican men were charged Friday with smuggling people into the United States after an ill-fated effort to ferry a dozen people to San Diego by boat from an island off Tijuana, Mexico, ended with the vessel adrift for nearly two days.
Immigration officials confiscated a fishing boat saying it had been used to smuggle people from Mexico to San Diego.
For years, smugglers have sought to bring people into the United States on boats in the Pacific Ocean, usually hiding among the bountiful pleasure craft off San Diego in the summer. People have also been caught trying to surf, use jet skis and swim in.
But the arrests this week, the authorities said, point to a troubling turn to the prospect of year-round smuggling; some 20 boats have been intercepted or found washed ashore on the San Diego County coast since August. Twenty-six people have been apprehended in those cases, but several more probably made it to their destinations: some have been observed by homeowners coming ashore and leaving their boats behind.
“We have never seen an increase like this in the off- or winter season,â€
