Newport Beach, California, is known for its multimillion-dollar homes, luxury yachts, and affluent coastal neighborhoods.
But Saturday afternoon, residents witnessed a far different scene when a boat carrying about a dozen suspected migrants entered Newport Harbor, struck a yacht, and was abandoned as its occupants scattered into the surrounding neighborhoods.
A blurry surveillance video posted to social media appears to show about a dozen suspected migrants exiting the boat and dispersing into the surrounding neighborhoods.
The Newport Beach Police Department told the Daily Signal it was informed that there was “no known threat to the City of Newport Beach” and that it has “no plans to change [its] patrols or surveillance of the coastline at this point.”
This isn’t the first such incident in Southern California waters.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Coast Guard rescued and interdicted 37 suspected migrants aboard a vessel 88 miles southwest of Channel Islands Harbor after its operator reported the boat had been “drifting without fuel, food or water for two days and lacked personal safety equipment.”
The 37 migrants were then transported to a Coast Guard base and transferred to U.S. Border Patrol personnel.
Erik Weigand, a Newport Beach City Council member, mentioned the Trump administration’s crackdown at the border, saying, “This is a consequence of just doing a good job at the border, but people finding new ways that they want to come over here.”
In April 2024, 20 suspected migrants unloaded from a panga on the Balboa Peninsula, jumping over fences and getting into vans that waited for them.
Erik Weigand told Fox News, “We are locked in here—this is a very law-and-order-friendly community,” emphasizing that Newport Beach will collaborate with federal law enforcement.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department told the Daily Signal that deputies responded to the boat accident at approximately 4:15 p.m. Saturday after an informant reported seeing several individuals leave the vessel.
The department said U.S. Customs and Border Protection contacted the Sheriff’s Department to take possession of the vessel and that the department is investigating the boat accident.
Continue reading...
[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
