SAN DIEGO, California — Breitbart Texas traveled west to what has become the busiest border crossing spot along the United States-Mexico border. The San Diego sector recently became the busiest Border Patrol sector for migrant crossings and the release of many migrants hoping to receive asylum and remain in the country.
As an election-year ploy hatched between the Biden administration and the AMLO government in Mexico to temporarily reduce the crossings along the southwest border continues to unfold, San Diego may continue as the hotspot for the immediate future.
As Mexican authorities continue to patrol commonly used train routes and public transportation hubs to reduce the optics and media coverage of an out-of-control border during the election cycle, San Diego remains open for now. As Breitbart Texas posted at several locations within what became the busiest border sector during the month of April, attempts by the Mexican government to reel in the traffic could be observed here as it was in other parts of the border to the east.
In Jacumba, California, a once busy migrant crossing in the eastern portion of San Diego County, encampments usually bustling with recently arrived migrants were mostly empty and void of traffic. Along the Mexican side of the Trump border wall just south of Jacumba, Breitbart Texas spoke with “Guardia Nacional” soldiers camped in temporary facilities at the base of the border wall. The Mexican soldiers, there since February, managed to reduce many of the migrant crossings in the area.
The soldiers told Breitbart Texas the challenges of patrolling the steep rock-covered mountains were enormous. In Spanish, one soldier said, “It takes us more than an hour and a half to hike to the top of this one mountain right here and we have several miles to cover along this area — it’s impossible.”
As evidence of the difficulty in stopping the crossings completely, one group of nearly a dozen migrants slipped through near the Mexican army camp. The group made it to nearby Interstate 8 near the In-Ko-Pa desert tower to a rallying point set up by the Border Patrol to receive the migrants on Sunday.
The rally point, once occupied by migrants waiting for days for transportation to a hardened facility to be formally processed by the Border Patrol, now sits empty. In nearby Jacumba, another camp to the west of the small community is void of the hundreds of migrants normally waiting to be moved away from the border due to the Mexican patrols to the south.
Meanwhile, the migrant traffic has now shifted into San Diego proper, making it the busiest crossing point for migrants along the southwest border — a position the San Diego Border Patrol Sector has not held in decades. A source within Customs and Border Protection informed Breitbart that nearly one thousand migrants are being released daily into the community.
Breitbart Texas witnessed many of the migrants released by the Border Patrol as they staged at the Iris Avenue Trolley station near Otay Mesa near the heart of downtown San Diego. The migrants are dropped off in the area to facilitate their use of public transportation to reach other parts of the United States. The migrants using the facility on Monday included migrants from the People’s Republic of China, Cuba, Venezuela, and a host of other countries from across the globe.
According to Customs and Border Protection, more than 27,000 migrants from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been arrested crossing the U.S.-Mexico border into San Diego since October. The sector saw more than 3,000 migrants from the PRC cross into San Diego in April alone.
Several local politicians, including Mayor Bill Wells from nearby El Cajon, California, expressed their concern with the rising number of migrant releases in the community. Wells has made numerous postings on X (formerly Twitter) addressing the increase in migrant crossings and highlighting the presence of migrants staging for days at the San Diego International Airport.
According to Customs and Border Protection, 37,320 migrants were apprehended by the Border Patrol in the San Diego Sector in April. The total represented a more than 300 percent increase from December 2020 under the Trump administration, when 8,510 migrants were encountered crossing into the sector. Despite the westward shift in migrant crossings, the number of migrants apprehended in fiscal year 2024 remains little changed from 2023.
According to Customs and Border Protection, more than 1,171,000 migrants have been apprehended by the Border Patrol since October. Compared to the nearly 1,254,000 apprehended during the same time frame in 2023, the level of migrant crossings year to date has only fallen 7 percent.
When added to the nearly 2,400 migrants allowed to enter United States land ports of entry and airports daily under the Biden administration’s “lawful pathways” using the CBP-One application, nearly 1.7 million migrants have entered the United States attempting to seek asylum since October. According to a source within Customs and Border Protection, more than 158,000 migrants have managed to elude apprehension by the Border Patrol during the same time frame. In all, nearly 2 million migrants have found their way into the United States since October despite attempts by the Biden administration and the AMLO government to reduce the optics of mass migrant crossings during the concurrent Presidential election cycle in Mexico and the United States.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.
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