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Witnesses and rescuers recount a dramatic moment.
A boat with dozens of migrants began to “collapse” near a beach in San Diego, California, forcing everyone on board to jump into the sea.
“Haba people in the water are drowning, being sucked in by the current», Recalls Jeff Stephenson, area manager of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP, for its acronym in English), of the incident on May 1.
They shouted and beckoned for help amid strong waves and cliffs at Point Loma, where witnesses jumped into the sea to assist as rescuers arrived.
In a few minutes, the ship began to disintegrate with the pounding of the waves. In the end, they saved 32 people who had to be hospitalized, but two men and a woman drowned.
“It’s probably one of the biggest accidents we’ve seen here. It’s a tragedy. In 26 years here, it’s probably the worst tragedy,” James Gartlant, head of the unit, told reporters. lifeguards in San Diego.
With the exception of the man at the helm, they were all undocumented migrants seeking to reach the United States by sea.
As the possibilities to seek asylum shrink and the US border wall has grown taller, longer and more guarded, many are being pushed to look for weak spots or alternatives.
One option is try to cross by sea, one who has always been there but few dare to take. Even a “pollero” who has taken illegal immigrants for decades tells BBC Mundo that he prefers not to risk.
“I had an accident, it was okay – the sailboat broke down and I couldn’t go any further for five days – but I didn’t want to risk any more there “Stresses Gustavo (not his real name).
Despite the danger this route poses, over the past year, U.S. immigration officials have seen a “spectacular” increase of 92% in the case of ships carrying migrants off the coast of California.
And this year, business is about to break records.
Crossing Baja California
The fortified fence that separates Mexico and the United States becomes small and rusty as it touches the waters of the Pacific between the Mexican city of Tijuana and the American city of San Diego.
At this point, groups of migrants from other parts of Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean – and even Europe and Africa – usually come together and find that the “American dream” is so near.
Many are desperate. They have been there for weeks or months, waiting in neighboring shelters for their asylum claims to be admitted to the United States, or for their families to collect the thousands of dollars the “polleros” ask for to take them from each other. side. .
“For the migrant who is frustrated, in a very desperate state, when considering the different ways of crossing into the United States, crossing by boat or by boat may seem a more convenient way,” Pedro Ros, chief, told BBC Mundo. from the San Diego office of American Friends, a migrant advocacy NGO.
But the journey across the sea begins far from the border wall.
Dozens of kilometers to the south, on the beaches near Rosarito and Ensenada, Baja California, is where smugglers take migrants to load them into boats that depart from yachts, medium boats, or light boats called “pangas”.
What the smugglers do not explain to these migrants is that they will have to face a very risky path and endure many hours, even days, on the way.
“They use old, maintenance-free boats with engines that they don’t know if they’ll hold up. The effort the engine makes to make it grow is a lot,” says Gustavo, who says he’s taken people along. worms in the United States since the age of 13.
The passage through the sea
The coasts of this region of the Pacific, on both sides of the border, are bordered by cliffs and rocks.
There are only a few sandy beaches in the tourist ports on the Mexican side, so the “polleros” have a few points to set sail without the supervision of the authorities.
They prefer to travel at night to avoid detection. So they go out into the ocean when the tide rises, which is a first risk.
“Unpredictable weather conditions, strong currents and freezing water temperatures create a ruthless environmentJason Givens, a spokesperson for CBP, told BBC World.
CBP Air and Marine Operations Office deploys daily boats and planes with sensors to detect suspicious movements, even on the high seas.
For this reason, boats with migrants they have to take a lot of breaks along the way. There are small islands where they wait for the departure of the patrols to continue their journey.
“Contraband ships generally don’t operate with the proper safety equipment, usually without lighting, navigation or communication systems,” Givens explains.
“Unlike an illegal entry across the land border, if there are problems at sea, rescue is much more difficult and potentially impossible. This is if they manage to communicate with the rescue personnel. ”
To have more chances of success, the “polleros” can try to reach well beyond San Diego, the beaches of Oceanside, San Clemente or even Los Angeles and San Francisco, hundreds of kilometers from their point of departure. departure.
Gustavo says that when he passed people by sea, they were carrying between 10 and 15 people.
But that the current “ambition” of many “polleros” means that they are carrying dozens of men, women and even children, crowded together and without enough food or water.
“These people think they are carrying fish (…) And the weight is not enough for the engine, it overheats and will explode”, explains the pollero.
The dangerous landing
Reaching the shores of California is not the end of the danger, but the most critical point of the journey.
The water in this strip of ocean is cold, influenced by Alaskan currents. In winter, it drops to 2 C.
Despite this, the landing usually occurs in the water.
“The main danger is that they can’t swim. Because the people who wear them don’t even warn them, ”says Gustavo.
“If they tell them that, from the start, people won’t want to go. They leave them some distance from the shore, where it is still deep. [traficantes] that does not interest them. They arrive, leave and come back. It can cause drowning for those who cannot swim, ”he explains.
After leaving the beach, the migrants are then handed over to a “contact” who is already waiting for them with a vehicle to be transferred undetected.
Emma Ramrez, who witnessed the incident in San Diego on May 1, told the Telemundo Network that migrants assured they left at 11 p.m. the day before and ran out of gas six hours later.
As it was adrift, the boat reached the rocky point where the waves broke and started to break.
The “spectacular” increase in cases
The sea crossing is one of the most expensive.
According to the legal indictment against the man who managed the wreck of the ship in San Diego, the migrants claimed to have paid for it between US $ 15,000 and US $ 18,000 to take away.
On the other hand, the land crossing can cost around $ 8,000, explains Pedro Ros.
Although it is an expensive trip, cases of vessel detection have increased steadily since 2017, according to CBP figures.
“We have recently seen a dramatic increase in the number of maritime smuggling attempts,” said San Diego area border patrol chief Aaron Heitk, who explained that last year the increase was 92%.
So far, in fiscal 2021 (as of October 1), 909 arrests and 76 ships have been detected. These figures show that this year is on track to surpass the previous period.
Jason Given says that criminal organizations they see undocumented migrants “as a commodity” which they can benefit from, without taking care of their safety.
“They will look for a way to carry out their criminal activity, whether by land or by sea. The ocean is, in many ways, just another form of smuggling and nothing new to the industry. from San Diego. ”
Pedro Ros, for his part, explains that this is a phenomenon that migrant advocates have seen on the rise for 15 years.
“This phenomenon is happening because the border has been reinforced since the mid-1990s, when the presence of immigration authorities in urban and rural areas increased. forced migrants to find other ways to cross with more risk, in the desert, in the mountains or in the sea, ”he explains.
What many migrants fail to realize, however, is that deaths also occur at sea in the same way as in the desert area between Mexico and the United States.
CBP authorities say they have no records of deaths from these types of cases at sea.
But the International Organization for Migration, which tracks cases using official figures and media reports, says “drowning” Yes “possible drowning” were among the three main causes of death of migrants on the US-Mexico border. in 2020 and so far in 2021.
Last year around 40 people occurred, a number that also includes deaths on the Rio Bravo / Grande on the Texas-Mexico border.
“There is more news about the deaths that occur when trying to cross the desert, and not so much about those that occur at sea,” says Ros.
But the desert, the accidents on the wall and the sea can be just as dangerous.
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