The US Coast Guard intercepted a 25-foot sailboat full of 16 unlawful Mexican immigrants off the coast of California on Saturday and turned them over to the border patrol, the company mentioned.
The crowded boat was noticed by a Coast Guard Lockheed C-130 Hercules airplane about 54 miles off the shore of Level Lima close to San Diego, with a cutter then dispatched to intercept the craft, the Coast Guard mentioned in a press launch on Sunday.
The cutter Petrel then stopped the boat and took the immigrants into custody, the company mentioned.
They mentioned the entire migrants on board claimed they had been Mexican nationals.
The Coast Guard has stepped up efforts to intercept and transport migrants since President Donald Trump took workplace this yr with a promise to deport unlawful immigrants within the US.
Earlier this month, one other crew stopped a “panga-style” boat loaded with Russian nationals and migrants from the Dominican Republic about 3 miles off the coast of Puerto Rico.
In February, a Coast Guard cutter intercepted an “overloaded” 30-foot sailboat boat packed with 132 Haitian migrants about 50 miles off the Florida shoreline together with girls and youngsters.
In one of many largest high-seas intercept, greater than 300 migrants from Haiti had been stopped close to the Bahamas attempting to achieve US soil and had been returned again house in June of final yr.
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