The US Coast Guard intercepted a 25-foot sailboat crammed with 16 illegal Mexican immigrants off the coast of California on Saturday and turned them over to the border patrol, the agency said.
The crowded boat was spotted by a Coast Guard Lockheed C-130 Hercules airplane about 54 miles off the shore of Point Lima near San Diego, with a cutter then dispatched to intercept the craft, the Coast Guard said in a press release on Sunday.
The cutter Petrel then stopped the boat and took the immigrants into custody, the agency said.
They said all of the migrants on board claimed they were Mexican nationals.
The Coast Guard has stepped up efforts to intercept and transport migrants since President Donald Trump took office this year with a promise to deport illegal immigrants in the US.
Earlier this month, another 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 coastline including women and children.
In one of the largest high-seas intercept, more than 300 migrants from Haiti were stopped near the Bahamas trying to reach US soil and were returned back home in June of last year.
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