Most illegal traffic into America of either people or drugs historically has come overland. Illegal maritime traffic has primarily come into Florida, involving mostly Cubans and Haitians. Now, the governments of red-state Texas and Florida are cooperating with the Coast Guard and Border Patrol to help shut down those land and sea avenues. What does that leave?
True-blue California, of course. Always one of the most woke and migrant-friendly states, California’s coast is just north of Mexico, where drug- and human-smuggling cartels rule. The state government insists on remaining a sanctuary for illegals, apparently to the bitter end, which can’t be very far in the future.
Since early December, California is witnessing, in the words of the New York Post, “migrants inundate Pacific waters.” The Coast Guard has intercepted at least 200 migrant boats in California waters in those 90 days, averaging about two encounters every day. In addition, officials on land are finding more and more such boats abandoned on California beaches, indicating successful got-aways.
Coast Guard Capt. Jason Hagen told Fox News Digital recently that the nationalities they are encountering are no longer just Mexican citizens coming in to the US for economic reasons. Now, he said, “We’re starting to see an uptick in other nationalities, as well, which is a…national security concern because it’s not just your economic Mexicans looking to come to the United States for work. It’s also … bad actors coming from other countries. We’ve seen nationalities to include Chinese, Russian, Uzbekistan[i], Pakistan[i]. It’s really all over the place.”
Capt. Hagen went on the explain the reason for the upsurge in his region:
It’s kind of like squeezing a balloon — you squeeze the balloon, and the air pushes to the other side, right? Well, that’s the same thing that’s happening with the migrant flow. They’re locking down the land border pretty good … where they used to get thousands a day. Now, they’re now down in the hundreds a day. So, the migrants have to go somewhere. The smugglers have to move their operations somewhere. And we’re starting to see an uptick in the maritime environment.
For now, the Coast Guard is coping with the increase, no thanks to the state of California and many of its large coastal cities. Republican California State Rep. Carl DeMaio recently told Fox News that taxpayer-funded benefits — such as housing, travel, and food — are acting like a magnet to migrants.
Moreover, cities, such as San Diego, are helping the migrants and smugglers by refusing to cooperate with federal immigration officials. Recently, San Diego’s Board of Supervisors passed a resolution declaring that the county will not provide assistance or cooperation to ICE, “including by giving ICE agents access to individuals or allowing them to use County facilities for investigative interviews or other purposes, expending County time or resources responding to ICE inquiries or communicating with ICE regarding individuals’ incarceration status or release dates, or otherwise participating in any civil immigration enforcement activities.”
In the case of San Diego, the local sheriff pushed back on the Board, saying, “The board of supervisors does not set policy for the sheriff’s office. The sheriff, as an independently elected official, sets the policy for the sheriff’s office.”
Let’s hope the sheriff realizes the harm her county’s government is participating in.
For more, see the NY Post.