5 charged after migrant boat capsizes off San Diego; Noem asks DOJ for death penalty

Five Mexican nationals are facing charges after a small boat carrying more than a dozen people capsized off the coast of San Diego, killing three passengers, including a 14-year-old boy from India, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of California announced Tuesday. 

The boy’s parents and two others were hospitalized following the human smuggling event, prosecutors confirmed in a news release. Nine other migrants were missing from the boat and were presumed dead, but authorities later located eight of them in Chula Vista, nearly 30 miles away from Del Mar, where the boat was found. A 10-year-old Indian girl, the boy’s sister, remains missing, prosecutors said.

“The drowning deaths of these children are a heartbreaking reminder of how little human traffickers care about the costs of their deadly business,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement.

U.S. Border Patrol said Tuesday that there were originally 16 individuals on board, some of whom remain missing. 

Jesus Ivan Rodriguez-Leyva and Julio Cesar Zuniga-Luna were arrested on Monday at the beach where the overturned boat washed ashore, according to prosecutors. They were charged with Bringing in Aliens Resulting in Death and Bringing in Aliens for Financial Gain, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday night announced that she will request the Department of Justice to seek the death penalty.

“Their deaths were not only avoidable but were also the direct result of the greed and indifference of smugglers who exploited them,” Noem said in a statement, in part. “Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, alien smuggling acts that result in death are capital crimes punishable by death. And under the Federal Death Penalty Act, those who intentionally participate in conduct knowing that it could result in the loss of life may be eligible for capital punishment.”

Prosecutors said three other suspects — Melissa Jennelle Cota, Gustavo Lara and Sergio Rojas-Fregoso — were arrested late Monday night after Border Patrol agents in Chula Vista identified a vehicle seen at a beach in Del Mar and investigated. While the driver of said vehicle fled, officers located two other vehicles involved and found the missing migrants, according to prosecutors.

Cota, Lara and Rojas-Fregoso were charged with Transportation of Illegal Aliens. Prosecutors said Rojas-Fregoso had been previously deported on Dec. 19, 2023.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the suspects had attorneys who could speak on their behalf.

It was unclear where the boat was coming from before it flipped about 35 miles north of the Mexico border, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Chris Sappey told The Associated Press. He said similar vessels were commonly used by smugglers.

In 2023, eight people were killed when two boats capsized off the San Diego coast.