Over 20 illegal migrants arrived by boat at a prestigious California marina Thursday morning, disappearing into a nearby neighborhood as authorities seek to improve response measures.
A video shared online on Thursday depicts the migrants disembarking from a white vessel and traversing fences at Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, California.
“I’m aware of a video showing a mass of people offloading from a boat in our Harbor,” stated Newport Beach Mayor Will O’Neill 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.”
“Our nation’s border crisis is serious, lawless, and dangerous,” emphasized O’Neill. “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.”
This development comes two weeks after a speedboat transporting dozens of migrants landed in Carlsbad, approximately 58 miles south of Newport Beach. The group narrowly avoided a surfer before departing in a black SUV at high speed.
“It looked like it was a planned deal,” remarked resident Susan Hargis to KUSI.
A beachgoer who captured footage of the migrants described the scene as resembling a military operation.
“To see it live like that, I mean even police and Border Patrol said they never caught it live like I did,” stated the unidentified resident to KGTV.
In December, around twenty migrants landed at a Malibu beach near singer Barbra Streisand’s $100 million mansion. Maritime smuggling in California has surged from 308 incidents in 2020 to 736 in 2024, marking a 140 percent increase, stated Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes, citing data from US Customs and Border Protection.