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The Federal Prosecutor's Office of the Southern District of California filed 148 border-related cases during the week of May 30 to June 6, 2026, with charges including human trafficking for profit, reentry after deportation, and importation of controlled substances.
This district, which encompasses San Diego and Imperial counties and shares 140 miles of border with Mexico, is the fourth most active in the country in terms of federal case volume, largely due to the high number of border-related crimes recorded in the area.
Among the most notable cases of the week is the arrest on May 30 of Luis Andres Pereyda González, a Mexican citizen, who was found by Customs and Border Protection agents with 203 pounds of cocaine hidden in the bed of his Ford F-150 truck while attempting to cross through the San Ysidro Port of Entry.
On June 2, Border Patrol agents apprehended Lorenzo Mendoza-Hernández, a Mexican citizen who had been deported in 2016 from Calexico, after a brief foot chase three miles north of the border and eight miles west of the Tecate Port.
On June 3, Qi Hua He, a U.S. citizen, was arrested for attempting to smuggle a Chinese national through the San Ysidro Port using a passport legally issued to another person.
The cases were supported by multiple federal agencies: Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Enforcement and Removal Operations (ICE ERO), Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
The San Ysidro Port of Entry, which connects San Diego —the eighth largest city in the U.S.— with Tijuana —the second largest city in Mexico—, is the busiest land border crossing in the world, with over 15 million crossings in personal vehicles and nearly eight million pedestrian crossings recorded in 2025.
The figure for this week indicates an increase compared to previous weeks: the prosecutor's office presented 134 cases in the week of April 24 and 114 cases in the week of May 22, which highlights a sustained trend of high procedural volume in the district.
This activity is part of the tightening of immigration policy under the second Trump administration, which has recorded more than 191,000 deportations since January 2025, averaging 1,188 daily.
In December 2025, the Border Patrol reported only 6,478 arrests at the southwest border, a figure presented as a historic low.
The prosecutor's office reminded that "formal accusations and criminal complaints are merely allegations, and all defendants are presumed innocent until their guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court."
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