Mi­grants con­sid­er­ing il­le­gal en­try in­to the Unit­ed States through mar­itime routes are be­ing warned that crim­i­nal net­works trans­port­ing peo­ple by sea of­ten place lit­tle val­ue on hu­man life, with some smug­glers lock­ing women and chil­dren in­to con­fined spaces or aban­don­ing pas­sen­gers when dan­ger aris­es.

Speak­ing dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing and demon­stra­tion in San Diego Bay on Thurs­day, Justin Brooks said mi­grant smug­gling op­er­a­tions have re­peat­ed­ly cre­at­ed life-threat­en­ing sit­u­a­tions for peo­ple pay­ing thou­sands of dol­lars to make the jour­ney.

The warn­ing comes as the US Coast Guard and Bor­der Pa­trol con­tin­ue ex­pand­ing mar­itime en­force­ment us­ing fast in­ter­cep­tor ves­sels, aer­i­al sur­veil­lance, and tech­nolo­gies, in­clud­ing ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence-sup­port­ed mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems and sen­sors de­signed to de­tect il­le­gal cross­ings.