The number of apprehensions in the San Diego area jumped 18% in the period from Oct. 1 through Aug. 7 over the same period a year earlier.
Among those recently opting to cross through San Diego rather than the desert was Mari Paz, the mother of four grown children.
She isn't able to get a tourist visa because she doesn't have significant assets. Mexicans who want to visit the U.S. are required to show that they have bank accounts, real estate or other property that would ensure they return to Mexico.
Smugglers took Mari Paz to a safe house in the notorious smuggling haven of Rancho Escondido, a shantytown on Tijuana's eastern fringes.
From there, traffickers led migrants to an area that has only one fence, which is easily scaled. After climbing it, they crossed several miles of brush-covered hills to getaway cars in San Diego's Otay Mesa area.
It looks deceptively simple, said Mari Paz, a short, dark-skinned woman with long black hair and a weary smile, during a visit to the fence.
"From here, [the smugglers] said, it would take only 15 minutes to get to the pickup spot, but I couldn't make it," she said.
Mari Paz said that after she jumped the fence, Border Patrol agents quickly found her and ordered her to climb back into Mexico.
She tried again later that day by going through a hidden door in the solid steel fence but again was unable to avoid agents.
On the second day, smugglers took Mari Paz and 14 other women on a different route closer to the warehouses and office parks of Otay Mesa.
This way avoids a long trek but requires scaling both fences, one with hard-to-navigate angled metal mesh at the top.
Smugglers hung a flimsy metal ladder from the 15-foot height. When Mari Paz reached the top, she almost lost her nerve. "I said to myself, 'What am I doing here?' ... I was so scared. But then I thought to myself, everything is for my son."
She jumped into the arms of the smugglers. But three Border Patrol agents showed up and arrested them. The next day, she tried the same route again and was caught by the same agents, she said.
Another night, the smugglers took her through a muddy drainage channel and told her to scurry into a small pipe, where she would crawl through a vast storm-drain network. Sizing up the pipe, Mari Paz balked.
Frustrated, but buoyed by her growing barrier-climbing skills, Mari Paz on another night again tried to scale the taller fence. But on the way down the other side she slammed her knee and fractured it.
