Last year was one of the deadliest on record for migrants crossing the southern U.S. border.

Experts say tougher enforcement is pushing migrants to take more dangerous risks,

like using the Pacific Ocean to try to get from Tijuana, Mexico to San Diego.

As Gustavo Solis of K-PBS in San Diego reports,

the result has been a spike in drownings.

The sound of crashing waves and children playing along the Tijuana coastline

looks like a normal day at the beach.

But at the US-Mexico border, there's more happening underneath the surface.

Here, the wall sticks out more than 200 feet into the Pacific Ocean.

The current is very powerful. It pulls you out into the ocean.

In the United States, they call it a rip current.

The Quana lifeguard captain, Louis Erandier In the United States, they call it a rip current.

The Quana lifeguard captain, Luis Hernandez, says that the metal posts from the border wall

create a permanent rip current that pulls swimmers out into the ocean.

These waters are unforgiving, says

Hernandez. It's not like swimming in a pool where you can just grab onto the ledge

whenever you need to catch your breath.

There is no ledge here.

There's nothing to grab onto when you're tired and need to catch your breath.

This stretch of ocean is particularly dangerous to migrants trying to swim around the border.

Over the last few years, Tijuana lifeguards have seen a record number of deaths.

They track rescues and drownings on a whiteboard at the main lifeguard tower.

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