Nate
Gold Member
This is a new frontier for illegal immigrants entering the United States - a roughly 400-square-mile ocean expanse that stretches 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 ramp up to meet the challenge.
U.S. 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 U.S. waters, they're almost invariably smuggling people or drugs.
U.S. 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.
Nation & World | Arrests double from illegal immigration at sea | Seattle Times Newspaper
No matter how tall or how thick we build our Southern wall they will always find another way to get to the "promise land." It is high time our Fed Government takes a good hard look at why we are facing an invasion from the South! We seem to have no problem interfering with a country's internal affairs half a world away so why haven't we stepped in down there? It is a war down in Mexico and the Mexican Government is losing. These Cartels are now using the same urban tactics that "terrorists" were/are using in places we call waz zones!
We have finally pulled troops out of a country with a budding democracy to let them walk on their own, it's time we help our neighbor before their Democratic way of life topples! I am done bitching and moaning about those that are running from certain death and a failed economy. If Mexico falls to the Cartels how long before we do as well? Not long at all if our Fed Government continues to ignore the problem...