Nearly two dozen suspected migrants seen sprinting off boat as it arrives in luxe California marina
Nearly two dozen suspected illegal migrants docked a boat at a luxurious California marina Thursday morning before vanishing into a nearby neighborhood as officials scramble to find a way to “do better.”
A video posted online Thursday shows at least 20 migrants abandoning the white boat and jumping fences at Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, Calif.
“I’m aware of a video showing a mass of people offloading from a boat in our Harbor,” Newport Beach Mayor Will O’Neill posted on X. “I’ve been in touch with the O.C. Sheriff’s Department who patrols our Harbor to find out how we can do better.”
California’s sanctuary state measure prohibits law enforcement from arresting or detaining migrants who enter the US illegally.
Maritime smuggling in California has risen from 308 in 2020 to 736 in 2024, a 140 percent increase, according to Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes, citing US Customs and Border Protection.
“Our nation’s border crisis is serious, lawless, and dangerous,” O’Neill added. “The approaches taken by the administrations in D.C. and Sacramento have made it significantly worse. As it has been said, every city is now a border city. We must expect better from people in charge of enforcing our laws.”
The situation comes two weeks after a speedboat carrying dozens of migrants landed in Carlsbad, 58 miles south of Newport Beach.
The group narrowly missed a surfer before piling into a black SUV and speeding off.
“It looked like it was a planned deal,” resident Susan Hargis told KUSI.
A beachgoer who filmed the migrants said it “looked like a military exercise.”
“To see it live like that, I mean even police and Border Patrol said they never caught it live like I did,” the unidentified resident told KGTV.
In December, two dozen migrants scattered onto shore on a Malibu beach near singer Barbra Streisand’s $100 million mansion.
