Posted on 03/29/2009 5:51:38 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Nallely and Heriberto Salgado boarded the Mexican fishing skiff bobbing off the Baja California coast last week and watched warily in the moonlight as 19 other people squeezed onto the vessel designed to carry no more than a dozen.
A smuggler piloting the 25-foot boat promised a short ride before landing on a beach in San Diego.
But 12 hours later, the Salgados were still being lashed with sea spray. The thick fog had burned off, leaving a panorama of brilliant blue, with no land in sight.
"We saw only ocean all around us," said Nallely Salgado. "And we were running out of gas."
With tougher enforcement and new barriers rising on land along the U.S.-Mexico border, many would-be immigrants like the ones crowded aboard the Tiburon are taking to the sea.
More than 310 people have been arrested on suspected smuggling boats since October 2007, more than triple the number from the previous 18-month time period. Marijuana seizures have also surged, with more than 29 tons seized in the same time frame, a more than tenfold rise from the previous period.
The increase in maritime smuggling has raised concerns with U.S. officials that Mexican trafficking groups are moving to exploit a perceived weakness in border defenses. Though sea journeys are risky, smugglers appear increasingly willing to take their chances on evading the handful of U.S. boats that patrol an area roughly twice the size of Los Angeles.
"This is a fast boat," said Keley Hill, San Diego marine operations director for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, as he piloted the 39-foot Interceptor outside San Diego Harbor. "But it's a big ocean."
Some boats slip through. In recent months, several abandoned vessels, with life jackets scattered nearby, have been discovered on beaches along the San Diego County coast.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Ping!
comidas del Tiburons
Seeing as how the story is from the Slimes, this is almost certainly part of the ‘if you build a 10 foot fence people will get an 11 foot ladder’ pile of garbage. What that ignores, of course, is what matters is numbers. If someone is rich enough and persistent enough, he will get through but you can stop or discourage the vast majority. So they stopped 300 on boats. The Border Patrol stops 100,000s on the land border.
BUILD THE FENCE. But not a chance with the current bunch and actually the Bush crowd either. WASS
It’s okay as long as their not smuggling tobacco. < /sarc>
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