Five Mexican citizens are facing charges after a small boat carrying a group of migrants capsized off the coast of San Diego, killing three passengers, including a 14-year-old boy from India, officials announced.
The boy’s 10-year-old sister is still missing at sea and presumed dead, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California said in a news release on Tuesday. Their parents were among the four people hospitalized; their father remains in a coma.
“The drowning deaths of these children are a heartbreaking reminder of how little human traffickers care about the costs of their deadly business,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement. “We are committed to seeking justice for these vulnerable victims, and to holding accountable any traffickers responsible for their deaths.”
The incident, described by officials as a “human smuggling event,” unfolded Monday, at a beach in Del Mar. Lifeguards already on the scene sprang into action when they spotted the sinking boat, initiating rescue efforts that were bolstered by the Coast Guard and local sheriff’s deputies.
U.S. Border Patrol said Tuesday that there were 16 individuals on board at the time.
Nine people were unaccounted for in the immediate aftermath, but authorities later located eight of them in Chula Vista, nearly 30 miles away from the waters where their boat flipped.
Jesus Ivan Rodriguez-Leyva and Julio Cesar Zuniga-Luna were arrested on the scene Monday and charged with bringing in aliens resulting in death and bringing in aliens for financial gain. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she will ask the Justice Department to seek the death penalty.
“Their deaths were not only avoidable but were also the direct result of the greed and indifference of smugglers who exploited them,” Noem said in a statement Tuesday. “Maritime smuggling is not just illegal — it is a violent and inherently dangerous crime. Those who knowingly place human lives at grave risk in furtherance of such crimes must be held fully accountable.”
Another three suspects — Melissa Jennelle Cota, Gustavo Lara and Sergio Rojas-Fregoso — managed to flee the beach in a vehicle, which was eventually spotted by border patrol agents in Chula Vista. They were all taken into custody Monday night and charged with the transportation of illegal aliens.
