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Migrants turn to the sea to enter US illegally

Thu, 08/26/2010 - 08:55 — Dave Culver
Section(s): 
Human Rights & Civil Liberties

In growing numbers, migrants are gambling their lives at sea as land crossings become even more arduous and likely to end in arrest

Elliot Spagat, Associated Press, in Jacksonville Florida Times-Union | FL

The speedboat is about three miles offshore when a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent cuts the engine to drift on the current in quiet darkness, hoping for the telltale signs of immigrant smuggling — sulfur fumes or a motor's whirr.

"It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and the haystack is the Pacific Ocean," agent Tim Feige nutes before sunrise marks the end to another uneventful shift.

This is a new frontier for illegal immigrants entering the United States — a roughly 400-square-mile ocean expanse that stretches from Tijuana, Mexico, to 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

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