IS EAST SAN DIEGO COUNTY’S ILLEGAL MIGRANT SURGE SUBSIDING?

 By Rebecca Person 

A bleak landscape is what  migrants face. Photo: R. Person 

November 6, 2023 (Jacumba Hot Springs) -- The abandoned youth center building in Jacumba Hot Springs, which has been pressed into service as a staging area for emergency supplies going to undocumented border crossers, is crowded with bags and bags of donated clothing, sorted and marked, ready for coming waves of new migrants into the area. While a lower number of migrants seems to be arriving, there is no reason to believe it won’t increase.

Volunteers in late October awaited delivery of a commercial-style refrigerator needed for meal-making supplies to serve more expected large groups. [Note: the refrigerator needs major repairs.] Here at the youth center building, which lacks a working bathroom and needs repairs, thousands of meals have been assembled by volunteers from church groups, humanitarian organizations and nearby residents in the past 6 weeks. The meals rarely vary from sandwiches of peanut butter and jelly and bags of assorted snacks, but do occasionally consist of hot meals prepared by volunteers - rice, beans, soups etc. and brought to the camps along with jackets, blankets, tarps and water. 

The number of migrants seems to be down by half recently, according to local residents who volunteer to take needed supplies out to the camps. But there are still dozens of border crossers steadily streaming into two of three camps near the border fence here, the desert terrain no more hospitable to them now than in summer’s heat, as overnight autumn temperatures grow colder. 

Locals in the area often express surprise that so many --hundreds,-- of people are in their midst, so well hidden are their crossing points from the main highway through town. A local school brought dozens of students on a field trip out to the border fence to witness the migrant activity this week, their teacher hoping this real-world lesson would have an impact on them. They got to see the camps and the cleanup efforts which have started; volunteers bagging hundreds of pounds of trash and abandoned remnants of cardboard and tarping used as shelters. 

The desert has been transformed into a surreal landscape of charred brush and collapsed tarps straining in the wind, human wastes afoot. 

Booties made from blanket scraps help border crossers take off on foot into the desert without being tracked.  Photo: R. Person

Aside from residents who barely notice any change in their beleaguered community and express surprise when told of the human drama unfolding around them, there are also those locals who reel from what they see - the influx of undocumented, unvetted strangers descending into their territory. Others voice empathy for the migrants. 

A local property owner reported hearing voices at 3 a.m. at the border fence. Border Patrol responded to the area, where 30 migrants were scaling the fence. Many more, groups swelling into 100-600 members, are witnessed at the camps regularly, in daylight.

Fears of just who might be coming into close proximity to residents’ families and neighbors are growing, with some local expressing alarm over  the potential for militant sleeper cells to seek entry in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. The fact that thousands of unvetted people with no health clearance or documents are flowing freely over the border also has them concerned. 

At one of a handful of border- jumping sites, migrants wait for Border Patrol transport.   Photo by Pete Cerep 

A porta-potty does lone sentry duty along border fence at Jacumba Hot Springs. Photo by R. Person 

According to one volunteer who frequents the sites and has the opportunity to converse with those who speak some English, some migrants appear to have cash and credit cards, but in camps miles away from any stores, they have nowhere to use them. 

Their stays in the rough camps that sprout up at points where they’ve scaled the border fence, often with help from handlers on the Mexican side or at openings in the fence where construction has halted, have been lasting up to six days. But in recent days, pickups by border patrol transport vehicles has sped up, with migrants lingering on the desert floor only about two days. 

One method of crossing is through holes in the fence. Photo by John Schultz

Humanitarian efforts continue, as community members now seek items needed to protect migrants from winterweather.

Donations are needed in the form of jackets, blankets, tarps, pallets of water and canned food with pop-top lids, via humanitarian organizations like Border Kindness www.borderkindness.org. Men’s jackets and blankets are especially needed.

The Youth Center in Jacumba is a drop-off and distribution point for donated items. 

Monetary donations can be sent via Venmo account # Gabrielle-Schultz-12