Coast Guard Intercepts Boats Off Puerto Rico and California, Arrests 57 Illegal Immigrants

U.S. authorities intercepted two vessels harboring illegal immigrants in separate incidents this month, preventing the entry of 57 foreign nationals.

The first interdiction involved the Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Air and Marine Operations detecting a 25- to 30-foot rustic vessel near Desecheo Island, Puerto Rico, on June 6, the CBP said in a June 15 statement. A U.S. Coast Guard cutter intercepted the vessel, which was moving toward the Puerto Rico shoreline.

Forty foreign nationals were apprehended—34 males and two females from the Dominican Republic, three men from Haiti, and one man from Uzbekistan.

“Air and Marine Operations remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting the nation’s borders and ensuring the safety of our communities,” said Director Christopher Hunter of the CBP’s Caribbean Air and Marine branch.

“We will continue to leverage advanced technology and teamwork to safeguard Puerto Rico and the broader Caribbean region.”

The second interdiction—10 miles west of Sunset Cliffs, California—was announced by the Coast Guard in a June 13 statement.

After authorities boarded the vessel, they apprehended 17 suspected illegal immigrants—16 claiming to be Mexican nationals and one unaccompanied minor claiming to be from Guatemala.

The suspects were transferred to CBP personnel for transport to Border Patrol custody.

Tackling Illegal Immigration

In a Jan. 9 statement, the Coast Guard said it achieved “historical operational success” in 2025, interdicting more than 11,000 illegal immigrants as its crews patrolled over 100,000 miles of U.S. border.

In addition, the Coast Guard seized more than 511,000 pounds of cocaine valued at over $3.8 billion, which the agency said was the “largest annual maritime drug interdiction in the service’s history.”

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard’s effectiveness in stopping illegal immigration over the past several years has come under scrutiny.

In a January 2026 report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said the Coast Guard needed to improve its maritime interdictions. In the report, GAO highlighted the Coast Guard’s failure to meet its interdiction targets over a 10-year period.

“The Coast Guard did not meet the target for its primary migrant interdiction mission performance measure—percent of migrants attempting to enter the U.S. by maritime routes interdicted by the Coast Guard—during six of 10 years from fiscal year 2015 through fiscal year 2024,” the report said.

The Coast Guard failed to meet its migrant interdiction target of 55 percent for 2015. The next year, the service lowered the target to 50 percent and exceeded that goal in 2016 and 2017. But for the next four years, the Coast Guard again failed to meet its goals despite the lower targets.

For 2022, the Coast Guard revised down the target once more, to 30 percent, meeting the goal that year and the next. But in fiscal year 2024, the service once again failed to meet the reduced target.