A San Diego official has declared the Southern California city by the sea the new “epicenter” of the Biden border crisis as thousands of illegal migrants cross by land and by boat weekly and are released into the United States.
Jim Desmond, a Republican on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, said illegal crossings have not only surged on land but off the Pacific coast as boats speed by federal military and police to drop off immigrants along the U.S. shoreline.
“San Diego is getting 3 to 4 boats washing on the shores a week, with illegal immigrants running into neighborhoods. This is on top of the over 130,000 migrants dropped on the streets of San Diego,” Desmond said in a post to X Tuesday.
“San Diego is the epicenter for illegal immigration, with nearly 1,000 people a day dropped on the streets,” Desmond added.
The most recent available data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealed that Border Patrol agents in the San Diego region arrested the second-most number of illegal immigrants in March, 33,000, compared to Tucson, Arizona, where more than 40,000 people were apprehended.
However, San Diego may have made the most in April, though federal data on arrests will not be made public until mid-May.
Desmond said the recent influx was a result of criminal smuggling networks choosing to push across immigrants from Mexico into the U.S. further west of Texas, where at the beginning of the Biden administration, 2-in-3 immigrants arrested were crossing.
“With Texas and Arizona clamping down on illegal border crossings, human smugglers are taking the path of least resistance through California, particularly the San Diego border sector,” Desmond said in a post Monday.
A Washington Examiner analysis of federal data showed that now, just 1-in-3 illegal immigrants arrested across the southern border takes place in Texas as measures that Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) imposed in a move to deter and prevent illegal immigration have prompted immigrants and smugglers further away.
“Border Patrol is their Uber into San Diego County, and San Diego County will be the migrant’s travel agents,” Desmond said, adding that the federal government had given the county $38 million toward assisting immigrants once they are let out of federal custody and allowed to remain in the U.S.
“With federal tax dollars, the County’s mission will be to put as many migrants on planes, trains, and automobiles as quickly as possible to other parts of the country. Sorry, America, this is what we have become, and soon, they’ll be coming to your town,” Desmond said.
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Until recently, the border crisis had had the greatest impact on south-central Texas and the Eagle Pass community, roughly a two-hour drive from San Antonio.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.
