WATCH: More Than 20 Illegal Immigrants Dock at California Marina, Vanish into Neighborhood

migrant - Cuban migrants apprehended after a makeshift boat landed in the Florida Keys. (U
U.S. Border Patrol/Miami Sector
Olivia Rondeau

More than 20 suspected illegal immigrants docked at an upscale southern California marina before jumping fences and escaping into the surrounding neighborhood in a shocking video captured in April.

Footage that the X account OC (Orange County) Liberator shared on Thursday shows a stunned onlooker witnessing the suspected invasion unfold just feet away at the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach.

The account clarified that the incident took place on April 20 — not Thursday, as originally reported.

Nearly two dozen people are seen hopping off a white boat, running up the dock, and climbing over barriers to make it off the pier. There were some women, but most appeared to be men. 

The small boat was left shoved carelessly against the dock, and the group was spotted piling into a black SUV before speeding away to an unknown location. 

“I’m aware of a video showing a mass of people offloading from a boat in our Harbor,” Newport Beach Mayor Will O’Neill wrote on X. “I’ve been in touch with the O.C. Sheriff’s Department who patrols our Harbor to find out how we can do better.”

“That said, I wholeheartedly agree with O.C. Sheriff Don Barnes’s tweet from two days ago about how our law enforcement’s hands get tied behind their backs by Sacramento’s ‘sanctuary state’ policies,” O’Neill added.

In the post the mayor referenced, Sheriff Barnes shared data showing that maritime smuggling is up as the state of California makes it harder for law enforcement to stamp it out, in his opinion:

Maritime smuggling is up, and although our Harbor Patrol works to interdict vessels trafficking drugs and people, state restrictions on communications with federal partners hinder our efforts. The state should repeal laws that restrict communication with our federal partners.

A graph that Barnes posted states that maritime smuggling in California has risen 140 percent in four years — from 308 in 2020 to 736 in 2024.

State SB 54, unofficially dubbed the “sanctuary state” law, severely limits law enforcement from arresting illegal migrants and prohibits them from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

“Our nation’s border crisis is serious, lawless, and dangerous. The approaches taken by the administrations in D.C. and Sacramento have made it significantly worse,” O’Neill continued in a thread.

“As it has been said, every city is now a border city. We must expect better from people in charge of enforcing our laws,” he added.

This incident occurred just a week after dozens of illegal migrants crashed into a beach in Carlsbad — just 58 miles south of Newport Beach. 

Even more disturbing footage from the afternoon of April 13 shows a similar-sized group of people rushing off of a small speed boat, past playing children on the beach, and into the San Diego-area neighborhood.

The crowd rushing onto the beach “looked like a military exercise,” a witness who filmed the migrants told KGTV.

“To see it live like that, I mean, even police and Border Patrol said they never caught it live, like I did,” the local added.

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