LOS ANGELES (AP) — At least 16 people seen floating in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico’s Baja California coast were rescued in the predawn hours Friday, and authorities were searching for several others in an area frequented by smugglers transporting migrants by boat to the U.S.
Those rescued were being taken to San Diego hospitals. One person was being treated for a suspected shark bite.
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The Coast Guard responded to a report of a vessel in distress at around 1 a.m., authorities said.
People were found floating in the water about 140 miles (225 kilometers) west of Ensenada, said Petty Officer Chris Sappey. Several smuggling boats have capsized over the years in fatal accidents in the area.
“There was no sight of a vessel in the water, just straight people in the water,” Sappey said.
One person rescued said as many as 27 people had been on board a boat, Sappey said. It was unclear how the people ended up in the water, and Sappey had no further details on what they were doing.
Three of the people rescued were taken to Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego including the person with a suspected shark bite and two people treated for cold exposure, said hospital spokesperson Janice Collins.
The Coast Guard and U.S. Navy were assisting Mexican authorities in the search with two helicopters, a fixed-wing plane and a cutter, Sappey said.
Messages seeking information were left for San Diego’s Fire-Rescue Department.
Migrants are increasingly turning to the risky alternative offered by smugglers to travel by sea to avoid heavily guarded land borders. Small boats called pangas leave Baja in the dead of night and sometimes travel hundreds of miles (kilometers) north.
There have been several incidents in recent years of migrant vessels capsizing en route to California.
In May of 2025, at least three people died when a panga flipped off the coast about 35 miles (56 km) north of the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2023, eight people were killed in one of the deadliest maritime smuggling accidents off the U.S. coast, when two boats approached a San Diego beach in heavy fog and one capsized in the surf.
A federal judge sentenced a San Diego man to 18 years in prison in 2022 for piloting a small vessel overloaded with 32 migrants that smashed apart in powerful surf off the coast, killing three people and injuring more than two dozen.
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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.
