Eight arrested after suspected smuggling boat lands in Mission Bay

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — Boats used in suspected attempted smuggling incidents have been spotted seen on beaches across San Diego County over the last week, including an attempt during the busy Fourth of July holiday weekend in Mission Bay.

Federal officials said migrants were seen running out of the suspected smuggling boat after it landed in Mission Bay around 11 a.m. Sunday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection arrested eight people and transported them to a facility for processing and removal. However, that was not the only incident since last Monday.

A video taken on July 1 around 8 a.m. in Solana Beach shows a Border Patrol agent investigating what appears to be another beached boat suspected of having been used in a smuggling. It is not clear how many people might have been on board and if any were apprehended.

That was one of two incidents on July 1, authorities said. Crews with San Diego Fire-Rescue confirmed another presumed smuggling incident occurred in the city of San Diego’s jurisdiction, near Dog beach in Ocean Beach. No one was rescued or made contact with lifeguards.

“My sense is that most of these landings of maritime crossings are planned,” said Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee.

Rios told FOX 5/KUSI that he is not sure if they used the Fourth of July Holiday as an opportunity to smuggle but noted there has been a general increase in maritime smuggling activity, all of it dangerous.

“I’m worried about what has been a dangerous type of crossing becoming normalized and it has become normalized,” Rios said. “This is a phenomenon that has been taking place for years in terms of how migrants — mostly Mexican migrants — cross into the U.S.”

The incidents over the holiday week came to a head about three months after a viral video depicted migrants running from a boat on a Carlsbad beach into an SUV.

At the time, San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond pointed to the incident as an example of a wider surge in maritime human smuggling. He said these efforts have increased by about 139% since 2020.

“The dangers are across the board,” Rios said. “People have died, people have drowned.”

In years past, including in 2021, federal law enforcement had announced the dedication of extra resources during the Fourth of July holiday to keep an eye out for smuggling activities by land, air and sea.

Although Rios said a similar effort was not mounted this year, nor had it been for the last few years.

In a statement, a spokesperson for CBP said the agency is “leveraging all available resources and partnerships to combat transnational smuggling operations off the coast of California.”

“The agency continues to surge personnel, transportation, processing, and humanitarian resources to the most active and arduous areas along our borders where migrants are callously placed by for-profit smuggling organizations, often without proper preparation,” the statement continued. “This includes surging resources and personnel to impacted sectors to ensure the safe, swift, and orderly processing of individuals to maximize expedited removals.”

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