U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Air and Marine crews intercepted a panga-style vessel on Saturday just west of San Clemente Island, a U.S. Navy-owned island in Los Angeles County, halting what CBP calls a “failed human smuggling attempt.”
According to CBP, which posted about the incident on Facebook, DHC-8 and Multi-Role Enforcement Aircraft crews coordinated with a Coastal Interceptor Vessel Crew on Saturday to intercept the vessel near San Diego.
After maintaining visual contact and vectoring support from the air, CBP agents intercepted the vessel just after 1:00 p.m. Onboard they found 23 migrants, all adult women and adult men, and turned them over to ICE in San Diego.
Back in February of 2025, Steve Knoblock, the mayor of San Clemente, an Orange County city just north of San Diego County, spoke with Fox News Digital. He alleged that there was an increase in panga-style ships that came ashore to drop off migrants before they “disappeared inland.”