Several People Dead After Boats Crash Near US Coast: Officials

San Diego authorities confirmed that eight people were killed when two boats suspected to be smuggling illegal immigrants crashed into the coast.

According to Richard Brahm, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Offior Richard Brahm, a woman aboard one of the panga-style vessels called 911 late Saturday night to report that the other vessel was being swept away by waves off Blacks Beach.

“The woman who called stated that the boat that overturned had 15 people on it, but that was just an estimate,” Brahm stated.

The Coast Guard and San Diego Fire-Rescue personnel pulled eight bodies out of the water. But thick fog hindered the search for more victims. Brahm stated that a Coast Guard cutter searched the area on Sunday and that officials were hopeful of getting helicopters into the air when the weather improves.

Illegal immigrants often travel by panga-style boats between Mexico and Southern California. It’s unclear if there were any arrests or if officials determined the nationalities.

Monica Munoz, spokesperson for San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, told Newsweek that the high tides prevented lifeguards from accessing the beach after 911 was called.

The lifeguards “proceeded north on foot wading through knee- to waist-deep water,” she . “After a couple hundred yards, lifeguards on the beach reached dry sand and then began to find lifeless bodies and two overturned pangas spread over an area of about 400 yards.”

“Lifeguards pulled victims from knee-deep water and from the waterline up the beach to dry sand,” She added. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers found an eighth body later.

Newsweek reported that they also discovered barrels of fuel and life jackets in the search.

After President Joe Biden became president in 2021, illegal border crossings soared. Many illegal immigrants turned themselves in to Border Patrol officials to be allowed into the United States to file their immigration cases.

But a federal judge last week struck down the administration’s program of releasing many illegal immigrants rather than holding them until their court cases. In a sharp ruling, the judge stated that the rule was against federal law.

“The evidence establishes that Defendants have effectively turned the Southwest Border into a meaningless line in the sand and little more than a speedbump for aliens flooding into the country,” T. Kent Wetherell (U.S. District Judge) was appointed by Trump. ruling.

In the meantime, a pandemic-related regulation that will end May 11 denials illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers based on the possibility that they spread COVID-19 is in place.

This report was contributed by The Associated Press.