What was supposed to be a routine end to a dream vacation at San Diego’s B Street Cruise Terminal yesterday turned into a standoff over secrecy, as community groups demanded answers about a series of late April crew detentions that passengers caught on video. Witness clips and first-hand accounts show uniformed crew members being led away from cruise ships and loaded into unmarked vehicles while stunned passengers looked on. Families and organizers say they still have basic questions: who was taken, where they went and which agency is actually calling the shots.
According to CBS 8, community advocates report that U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained about 10 crew members from a Disney cruise ship on April 23 and, two days later, four crew members from a Holland America vessel. CBS 8 notes that the B Street Cruise Terminal is a federal port of entry where immigration and customs authority rests with CBP, and reports that CBP told reporters it was preparing a statement. The outlet also reports that Holland America characterized the situation as a law-enforcement matter and said it would cooperate with investigators.
One of the most-circulated videos came from passenger Dharmi Mehta, who recorded the April 23 operation as travelers were disembarking. Mehta told KPBS that the footage shows CBP agents loading crew members into a white van as other passengers walked off the ship. She said, “We got to know him fairly well — he was actually serving us 45 minutes to an hour before he was in restraints,” and added that when she later ran one crew member’s name through the ICE locator, the person did not appear in the system. That clip, and Mehta’s account, now sit at the center of activists’ demands for federal authorities to spell out names, charges and custody locations.
The Port of San Diego’s Harbor Police told reporters it had no role in what happened and said it did not receive calls about the incidents, according to CBS 8. The agency pointed out that, under California law, local harbor police do not participate in immigration enforcement. Activists say that leaves a void of information for relatives and labor organizers, who are unsure where the detainees were taken or whether consular officials have been looped in.
“Now this forms part of a larger pattern of affecting raids and immigration detention in work sites,” organizer Benjamin Prado told KPBS at a pier-side press event. Local immigrant-rights organizations joined Mehta at Tuesday’s demonstration, calling for names, charges and access to lawyers for anyone who remains in custody. Some organizers also said they worry that crew members, several of whom they identified as Filipino nationals, may already have been deported without their families being notified.
Legal context
Federal ports of entry fall under the jurisdiction of Customs and Border Protection, which is responsible for immigration screening and enforcement when ships arrive. In California, SB 54 restricts local law enforcement from using resources to carry out federal immigration enforcement. The bill’s text lays out limits on how and when local agencies can cooperate with immigration authorities, along with narrow exceptions. Under that framework, local harbor police in California generally do not conduct immigration arrests, which lines up with the Port’s statement that it had no involvement in the detentions.
What organizers want next
Organizers say they plan to keep pressing CBP to release names, charges and custody locations for the crew members taken from the two ships, and they have urged the Philippine consulate to confirm whether its nationals were detained or repatriated. For now, activists and passengers say they are left with video clips, scattered accounts and a lot of unknowns while federal authorities prepare whatever public explanation they intend to offer. Community groups say they will continue applying pressure until crew members’ families and employers receive a clear account of what happened at the pier.
