Viral Video In OC Sparked Fears Of Rise In Human Smuggling. But What Does The Data Say?

A recent viral video of suspected migrants rushing off a boat in Newport Beach, posted to social media late last week, elicited online responses ranging from alarmed to angry and, well, even angrier.

“This is a full scale invasion,” one person lamented on X, the former Twitter. “Our country is being destroyed.”

What people were claiming

People posting and reposting the video, which showed people disembarking from what looked like a small fishing or pleasure craft, initially suggested it was happening that same day, “Thursday morning,” May 2. (The Orange County Sheriff’s Department said the boat in fact arrived April 20, nearly two weeks before the social media buzz.)

One local elected official responded with a swipe at Sacramento and “sanctuary state” policies. The Orange County Sheriff posted a chart on X showing a rise in smuggling incidents over recent years. “Maritime smuggling is up,” the tweet read.

And it was — until recently.

What the data shows

According to data provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, encounters with smuggling boats — most smuggling people, some drugs — rose in recent years off the California coast, reaching an all-time high of 735 in the fiscal-year period between October 2022 and last September. As the dangerous practice grew, so did accidents, like the March 2023 capsize off Black’s Beach in La Jolla in which eight people died.

But so far this year, the trend appears to be flattening. According to CBP, in the current fiscal year that began last Oct. 1, authorities have only reported 315 maritime smuggling incidents along the California coast, fewer than at this time last year.

Officials say this drop also goes for smuggling boats showing up off Los Angeles and Orange counties, in spite of the viral video.

Why all the buzz

Restrictive policies at the border in recent years that began with the pandemic have been pointed out by advocates as a likely contributing factor that drove up demand for alternative routes, such as by sea.

And in an election year, immigration has been polling near the top of voters’ key issues, not to mention candidates’ talking points. So even if the video wasn’t breaking news, and even if the numbers have slowed, it was still bound to get attention.

“I didn’t find out about it until people started sharing it,” Sgt. Matthew Parrish, a spokesman with the Orange County Sheriff's Department told LAist. “I don’t know, (there are) certain things that catch the public’s eye, and certain things that don’t.”