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7 months ago
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San Diego saw a staggering 6,997 migrant encounters in just seven days at the start of April in an alarming indicator of the worsening border crisis, DailyMail.com can reveal.
The number is around the same as other sectors normally see in an entire month, and only reflects those who were caught - meaning the true scale is likely higher.
'Unfortunately, I'm not surprised,' San Diego County Commissioner Jim Desmond told DailyMail.com Thursday.
'Texas is clamping down and other areas are clamping down.
Migrants with carry-ons are apprehended at the border in El Campo on March 13
US Border Patrol took 6,997 migrants into custody from April 3-9
Georgian migrant Nani, smiles as she thanks a U.S. volunteer, speaking between gaps in one of the border walls separating Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, as she waits to apply for asylum with U.S on Friday
Migrant encounters in the San Diego sector (shown above) have been steadily rising since 2021. Last week, the region saw 6,997 in just one week, according to federal statistics
'Here in California, they're allowed to walk in unimpeded. They're going to follow the path of least resistance, and the least resistance is in California.'
The San Diego sector, which includes most of the Southern California border with Mexico except El Centro and Calexico, has been seeing high number numbers of migrant crossings in recent weeks, between 6,000-8,000.
What makes the April 3-9 numbers so significant is that they were the highest in the nation, even beating out #1 Tucson sector.
The Arizona sector only saw 6,600, but regularly sees as many as 11,000.
The Border Patrol divides the border into 'sectors' or regions.
According to the latest figures released by the feds, San Diego has been the third busiest, but that could be changing.
'Tucson has been the number one sector for migrant arrivals since July 2023, but numbers have been dropping,' Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America said.
Migrants surrender to the U.S. Border Patrol after crossing the border wall from Mexico near Campo, California, about 50 miles from San Diego, on Wednesday, March 13
These Chinese migrants were dropped off at a transit center near San Diego Tuesday after they were processed and screened by federal immigration authorities
'While one week's data is not enough evidence to go by, it is possible that San Diego may be supplanting Tucson as the number-one sector.'
With so many migrants entering the country through SoCal, migrants who are vetted by US Border Patrol are being released onto the streets.
The county migrant shelter closed a few months back, after local leaders decided they did not want to the $18 million dollars a year to keep running it.
'It was costing us, at that point in time, about $1.5 million a month to basically be their travel agent. Border Patrol was their Uber, bringing them to those drop off areas, and then we were their travel agent,' Desmond quipped.
Without the local shelter, migrants are either being let loose at a transit station or at the airport by the feds.
'The biggest burden here lately has been our airport. Luckily a lot of them are flying to other parts of the country, but we're a tourist community. People coming to San Diego, they see all the people sleeping there. It looks bad,' the commissioner added.
'We just can't sustain it; we can't manage the numbers that are coming here.'
Migrants have been known to spend as many as five days crashing at the airport while they wait for a flight out of town, Desmond added.
Chinese migrants are crossing the US-Mexico border in increasing numbers, federal statistics show
Like other border communities across the country, San Diego's airport does not add extra flights simply because there's a spike in migrant crossings.
Often times, there aren't available seat to fly out or migrants, with limited means, wait a day or two until ticket prices drop and they can afford to travel to their final destination.
Last month, an image of a migrant sleeping underneath restroom sinks at the airport was shared by a local conservative talk show host.
'My photo at San Diego International Airport this morning. Men’s restroom near TSA, gates 5-10 in Terminal One. Homeless transient or “asylum seeker” asleep under sinks next to urinals. Common all over with surge in migrants dumped in SD,' tweeted Mark Larson.
The most recent weekly figure does not include the migrants who entered the US legally with CBP One Appointments at the San Ysidro Port of Entry between Tijuana, Mexico and San Diego California.
At least 77,000 migrants have entered Southern California that way from October to February, federal statistics show.
The figure also doesn't account for so-called got-aways, migrants who federal agents know made entry into the country but were unable to apprehend, a number that was not released.
English (US)