As Mexico Border Tightens, Smugglers Take to Sea

July 18, 2009
As Mexico Border Tightens, Smugglers Take to Sea
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
SAN DIEGO — They move north in rickety fishing boats, often overloaded and barely seaworthy, slipping through the darkness and hidden from the watchful radar of American patrols.

Along beaches north of here, the migrants from Mexico and beyond scramble ashore, in groups of a dozen or two, and dash past stunned beachgoers, sometimes even leaving behind their boats, known as pangas. Drug smugglers, too, take this sea route, including one last month found paddling a surfboard north with a duffel bag full of marijuana on it.

As the land border with Mexico tightens with new fencing and technology, the authorities are seeing a sharp spike in the number of people and drugs being moved into the United States by sea off the San Diego coast.

Law enforcement authorities in the United States said the shift demonstrated the resolve of smugglers to exploit the vastness of the sea, the difficulty in monitoring it, and the desperation of migrants willing to risk crossing it.

“It’s like spillover from a dam,â€

May I suggest making a laser grid with boueys. The towers on the boueys should extend 20 to 30 ft above the water and below. They should be linked by laser from east to west going out maybe 300 miles out to see at least. All movement above water and below past these interconnected boueys will trigger an alrm and give a pretty good location...

Maybe they can also double as windmills so they can supply their own energy AND some for California residents?