Three Migrants Rescued in California Mountains near Border

El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents rescued three severely dehydrated migrants in the Jacumba Mountain Wilderness area Sunday.

Agents assigned to the El Centro Sector’s Radio Communications Center early Sunday morning received information that three migrants had become lost and needed medical assistance in the Jacumba Mountain Wilderness Area, according to information obtained from El Centro Sector Border Patrol officials. The wilderness area is located south of Ocotillo, California. Officials describe the area as being difficult to reach via vehicle.

The agents interviewed the migrants and narrowed down their location. Dispatched agents and Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue (BORSTAR) agents initiated a search operation to locate the distressed migrants. About two hours later, the agents located the migrants.

The BORSTAR agents assessed the migrants’ medical conditioned and found two of the three migrants to be severely dehydrated. They agents initiated emergency medical assistance by starting intravenous fluid treatment. Other agents contacted the Ocotillo Fire Department which dispatched Emergency Medical Services crews to provide additional medical services and transportation to a local hospital.

Agents later arrested all three migrants and transported them to the El Centro Border Patrol station for processing on immigration violations.

Officials did not disclose the nationality of the three migrants rescued from the mountain region.

So far this year, at least 336 migrants died while or shortly after illegally crossing the border from Mexico into the United States, according to the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project. More than 200 of those died along the Texas border with Mexico.

During Fiscal Year 2019, Border Patrol agents rescued more than 3,000 migrants whose lives were put in danger by human smugglers, Breitbart Texas reported. Many migrants are extorted, raped, beaten, or placed in life-threatening situations during the human smuggling process.