Residents say a hotspot for border crossings in Jacumba — about 70 miles east of San Diego — has calmed in recent months, after years of national attention over the number of migrants entering the United States from Mexico through a small passage where the border fence ends.
“It was open border, and everybody came as they pleased,” said Jerry Shuster, who says he has lived in Jacumba for 40 years and owns 16 acres that back up to the border near that gap. “There was kids coming in, elderly people, young and old.”
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Shuster said the migrants came from all over the world and that camps were set up on his property to house them as they waited to be picked up by immigration officials.
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SIGN UP “There was camps, and there was 20 fires burning. People was using bathrooms anywhere,” Shuster said. “The Border Patrol haven't done nothing. They just, they was kind of directing the traffic. There was buses coming in and out, all day and all night. Just like a war zone, really.”
On Wednesday, members of the Mexican military were stationed at the passage where the fence ends as it meets the base of a mountain. The gap has long been covered with razor wire but is now also accompanied by a wooden pallet, propped on its side to further block entry.
A Mexican soldier said about 30 military personnel had been stationed at that location 24 hours a day for more than a year to deter migrants from entering the U.S., adding that they hadn’t seen any migrants at that location since December.
In January, Customs and Border Protection tallied 61,465 encounters at the southwest border, according to their latest release of monthly figures. That's down 36% from December and down 65% from the same month last year.
"U.S. Border Patrol San Diego Sector has seen a dramatic decrease in illegal crossings this fiscal year. This is consistent with current trends across the southwest border," a CBP spokesperson said in a statement, when asked about the changes in Jacumba. "While crossings are down over 65% from this time last year, San Diego remains the busiest sector in the nation."
“It's a lot more peaceful. It's a lot more quiet,” said Pete Cerep, who moved to Jacumba, just down the road from the passage, in March 2023. He said that’s when crossings behind his property picked up.
Cerep said the area behind his property also attracted a lot of migrants because the floodgate provided a ledge for them to step onto after climbing the fence. He said the concertina wire was cut in that area, and he collected several discarded ladders as evidence.
“There's someone on the Mexico side just making these ladders out of rebar, and they'll put the rebar up, climb up, hop over the fence and then they can lower themselves down,” Cerep said. “So for two years straight, just people flooding over all times of the day, all times of the night.”
Like Shuster, Cerep said the migrants came from all over the world. He started recording videos, showing them climbing the fence and waiting to get picked up.
“I came home on my lunch break. Sixty Chinese males lined up on my property right here,” Cerep said. “I'm talking thousands of people with my own two eyes invading America through California. I mean, it's absurd.”
“It's definitely stressful, especially when Border Patrol is basically a glorified babysitter,” he added.
Cerep said that before the election, the concertina was replaced and border crossings dropped seemingly overnight.
“Border Patrol comes up and down here 20 times a day, every half hour,” he said. “Only now they're doing their job. They go to the fence, they see nothing happening, nothing happening.”
“Right this moment, right now, everything is calmed down and back to normal, just like it used to be years ago,” said Shuster, who said he wanted everyone to know: “They can come and visit us. It's all good now.”
