US deals with migrant smuggling by sea on both coasts

Thousands of maritime smuggling operations occur every year around the world as desperate migrants seek a haven but instead often end up dying on flimsy boats.

The United States is a main destination, and the latest seaborne tragedy occurred off a San Diego beach on Saturday. It ended in the deaths of at least eight people after the two boats they were in capsized. All were adults. Their nationalities haven't been confirmed.

It was one of the deadliest maritime incidents involving migrants in the US, said Eric Lavergne, a Border Patrol spokesperson. In May 2021, a boat carrying migrants capsized and broke apart in powerful surf along the rocky San Diego coast, killing three people and injuring more than two dozen others.

In July, Alejandro Mayorkas, the US secretary of homeland security, said at a news conference that people trying to migrate by sea wouldn't be permitted to enter the country. "To those who risk their lives doing so, this risk is not worth taking," he said.

But they still come to both US coasts to avoid increased land-border enforcement and to escape dire economic and political circumstances — even war — at home.

In the 2021 fiscal year, more than 3,200 migrants were apprehended trying to reach the US by sea, according to Homeland Security.

Smuggling networks have ferried thousands of undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America to Southern California, which is believed to have experienced the busiest year of maritime smuggling on record — 1,968 apprehensions in the 2021 fiscal year.

In California, criminal organizations are collecting $15,000 to $20,000 per Mexican national, and up to $70,000 for people from other countries to transport people by sea, said Joseph Di Meglio, assistant special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Diego.

"The reality is it's a low-risk, high-reward operation," he told the Times.

Migrants arriving in California typically have journeyed to the Mexican border from Central America or even farther.

Smugglers often use pangas, flat-bottomed fishing boats that pick up migrants on the beaches in Baja California, the Mexican state just south of California. They often make their trips at night, but they also have tried to blend in with recreational traffic by using pleasure boats, such as sailboats and cabin cruisers, Di Meglio said.

Illegal crossings by boat and land have soared under President Joe Biden, with many migrants turning themselves in to Border Patrol agents and being released in the US to pursue their cases in immigration court.

On the other side of the country, the US Coast Guard at times has intercepted more than 100 Cubans, Dominicans and Haitians crammed into a single boat in choppy Florida waters.

Florida authorities detained 1,316 Cubans, Haitians and Dominicans — representing the bulk of all migrants — in the 2021 fiscal year, compared with 588 in 2020 and 748 in 2019.

Many of the smuggling operations on the East Coast have departed from Bimini, small islands in the Bahamas populated by fewer than 2,000 people. They are the closest inhabited islands to the US.

Smuggling operations of migrants by sea aren't limited to the US and also are carried out by land or air. It all depends how much one is willing to pay and risk.

Last week, the British government unveiled legislation that would give the Home Office a "duty" to remove nearly all asylum seekers who arrive on small boats across the English Channel. In November 2022, the British Defense Ministry said more than 40,000 people had arrived by boat.

Agencies contributed to this story.