US Coast Guard rescues at least 16 and is searching for more in the water off Mexico’s Baja Coast

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, a U.S. Coast Guard official said.

Petty Officer Chris Sappey said at about 1 a.m. PT several people were spotted floating in the water about 140 miles west of Ensenada. Sappey said it was unclear why people were in the water and no vessel has been found. He said one person who was rescued said as many as 27 people were on board a boat. Sappey had no further details about what the people were doing.

“There was no sight of a vessel in the water, just straight people in the water,” Sappey said.

Those being rescued were being taken to hospitals in San Diego, Sappey said.

The Coast Guard was assisting Mexican authorities in the search efforts with a helicopter, fixed-wing plane and a cutter, Sappey said.

Migrants are increasingly turning to the risky alternative offered by smugglers to travel by sea to avoid heavily guarded land borders, including off California’s coast. Pangas leave Mexico in the dead of night and sometimes chart 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 when two migrant smuggling boats approached a San Diego beach in heavy fog and one of them capsized in the surf. It was one of the deadliest maritime smuggling incidents in waters off the U.S. coast.

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.

Julie Watson, The Associated Press