U.S. Border Patrol agents rescued five dehydrated migrants who were stranded on a mountain in California on Tuesday morning, the department said.
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department alerted Border Patrol at 2:30 a.m. to a group of migrants who were lost near Otay Mesa, NBC San Diego reported.
The Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue Unit, known as BORSTAR, located the stranded party at around 10 a.m. after a member of the party called 911, Border Patrol officials said.
The group was dehydrated and disoriented when agents found them, and they reportedly ran out of food and water, according to ABC 10.
Agents took four of the five migrants to a nearby Border Patrol station to be processed. One of the five migrants was a woman with a leg injury that required her to be airlifted to a local hospital for treatment, according to NBC San Diego. (RELATED: Mexico Has Deployed 15,000 Troops To The Border, Is Now Detaining Illegal Migrants)
“Our primary job is to protect the border, but it’s also to protect those people trying to cross,” agent Miguel Angel Peña said.
Customs and Border Protection said it detains 170 migrants per day attempting to illegally cross the border in the San Diego sector, according to ABC 10.
The Mexican government deployed 15,000 ground troops on the country’s northern border this week to help control illegal immigration into the U.S. With recently increased border security on both sides of the border, CBP said migrants are putting themselves in even more dangerous situations by attempting to cross the border in more remote areas, according to ABC 10.
CBP was unavailable to comment by the time of publication.
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