San Diego Sector Border Patrol agents rescued 22 migrants from California wilderness areas during a 24-hour period ending on Friday. The rescues followed the onset of bad weather in the area.
At about noon on Friday, the San Diego Sheriff’s Department received a distress call from a migrant woman and her 16-year-old daughter. The mother and daughter became lost in the mountainous region located southeast of the Otay Lakes Reservoir, according to information obtained from San Diego Sector Border Patrol officials. The migrants reported they had no food or water after being abandoned in the wilderness.
Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue (BORSTAR) responded to the area and began a search for the missing migrants. A helicopter aircrew from the sheriff’s department joined in the search. Agents found the woman and child a short time later.
Agents followed direction from the aircrew and hiked into the area where the woman and young girl had become incapacitated. The agents found the migrants to be losing consciousness and said they were incoherent from the lack of water and food.
Agents began lifesaving treatment and called for a medical evacuation helicopter to transport the migrants to a nearby hospital for further treatment and evaluation. Agents identified the mother and daughter as being in the U.S. illegally. They did not disclose the nationality of the migrants.
On Thanksgiving night, San Diego Sector agents rescued 20 additional migrants and found one migrant who did not survive.
At about 11 p.m. on Thursday, agents found three migrants attempting to enter the U.S. illegally by crossing through a drainage tube located about two miles west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry, officials reported.
The three migrants told the agents there were three more people inside the tube. Agents called San Diego Fire and Rescue for assistance in rescuing the migrants from the rising water in the tube due to rainfall in the area.
Agents heard people yelling for help and rescued one woman. She told the agents that more people had fallen down in the tube. Using a manhole access point, agents and fire rescue crews located thirteen people and pulled them to safety. The entire rescue operation took less than an hour to complete.
About an hour later, agents heard another female calling for help from the same drainage tube. Agents rescued her and two others.
All of the rescued migrants were transported to local hospitals for evaluation and treatment. Officials reported they rescued 15 Mexican men, three Mexican females, one Guatemalan man, and a Mexican juvenile male.
Shortly before 3:00 a.m. on Friday, agents found a deceased man on the waterline on the beach near the Tijuana River mouth, officials stated. San Diego County took custody of the dead migrant’s body.
“The lifesaving efforts of these agents, who bravely risk their own lives to save others, makes me proud,” San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent Douglas Harrison said in a written statement. “Inclement weather conditions and perilous drainage pipe water flows, significantly increase the odds of a grim outcome.”
The sector chief added, “These dangers are not important considerations to smugglers, who place an emphasis on profit over their victims’ safety. Simply put, it not worth crossing the border illegally and risking one’s life.”
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face
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