Smugglers stow migrants on deserted island

Human traffickers are hiding migrants on a deserted island off San Diego, a local news station reports.

Channel 10 News traveled there with humanitarian group Desert Angels, which leaves food and water on "Smuggle Island" in the northern part of Mexico's Coronado Islands to provide sustenance for immigrants entering the United States illegally.

The group's members told the station that when smugglers are worried about getting caught by the Coast Guard or when weather is bad, they leave immigrants on the island for days. Smugglers then transport the immigrants into U.S. territory via small "panga" boats that cross into San Diego in the middle of the night.

Desert Angels member Rafael Hernandez told the station his group found five immigrants who were abandoned on the island without food or water.

Illegal entries into the country are down overall, according to the Department of Homeland Security, but more migrants are using boats to try to enter the U.S.

[Discovery: Underground tunnel connects U.S. and Mexico]

Since border control has tightened, smugglers and lone border-crossers now try more remote and treacherous crossings to avoid capture. Hundreds of people died last year trying to cross into Arizona. This past summer, so many bodies of would-be immigrants turned up in the desert that authorities needed a refrigerated truck to store them all.

[Report: 25 states considering Arizona-style immigration laws]

As Mexico's drug cartels have become more powerful, they have solidified their hold on the human smuggling market. People seeking to enter America illegally used to turn to an unorganized network of thousands of "coyotes" who would guide immigrants over the border in exchange for a fee. Now, drug cartels usher an estimated 176,000 immigrants per year into the United States. Experts say that the cartels' involvement means that these immigrants are much more vulnerable to financial exploitation or abandonment.

(Photo of a march in memory of Mexican migrants who died while attempting to cross into the U.S.: AP)

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