The US Coast Guard said on Friday it had rescued at least 16 people found floating in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico’s coast, as the search continued for several others.
The rescue operation took place at around 1 am Pacific Time, approximately 140 miles west of Ensenada, a major port city in Baja California, a province in Mexico. In May 2025, at least three people died when a panga capsized about 35 miles (56 km) north of the US-Mexico border. In 2023, eight people were killed when two migrant-smuggling boats approached a San Diego beach in heavy fog and one capsized in the surf. In 2022, a federal judge sentenced a San Diego man to 18 years in prison for piloting an overcrowded boat carrying 32 migrants that broke apart in powerful surf, killing three people and injuring more than two dozen.
The incident was among the deadliest maritime smuggling disasters in waters off the US coast. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.
One rescued person told us as many as 27 people were on board a boat,” the Associated Press quoted Petty Officer Chris Sappey as saying.
Small boats known as “pangas” often leave Mexico under cover of darkness and travel hundreds of miles north. “There was no sight of a vessel in the water, just people in the water. Those rescued were being taken to hospitals in San Diego, US, Sappey added. The Coast Guard was assisting Mexican authorities in the search operation, deploying a helicopter, a fixed-wing aircraft and a cutter. Migrants are increasingly turning to dangerous sea routes offered by smugglers to avoid heavily guarded land borders, including along the California coast. Several migrant vessels have capsized off the California coast in recent years.