Southern California coast smugglers launch more immigrant and drug-filled vessels than ever before toward the state

Southern California coast smugglers launch more immigrant and drug-filled vessels than ever before toward the state — about one every three days on average. Vessels still land at San Diego-area beaches but are also traveling as far north as Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. Drug smugglers venturing even farther have been caught on Catalina Island and Santa Rosa Island, off the Santa Barbara coast.

Last year, 867 illegal immigrants and smugglers were arrested at sea or along the California coast, more than double the number in 2009. Border authorities have had to redeploy agents from the land border to the coast, where they scan the ocean with night-vision goggles and give chase across dunes instead of fields.

"I used to think that the [border] was the fence....All of a sudden this has become the front line in our efforts," said U.S. Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Steve McPartland at the San Clemente station, speaking to boaters and residents at Dana Point Harbor.

Immigrants have stumbled ashore in the shadow of the San Onofre nuclear power plant. In Del Mar, two smugglers ran their marijuana-laden boat onto a dog beach across from multimillion-dollar homes. At least eight immigrants ran up the bluffs to East Coast Highway after their boat beached at Crystal Cove near Newport Beach. Sixteen people aboard a broken-down boat were rescued about 70 miles offshore in October after being spotted by the amphibious assault ship Boxer.