JACUMBA, Calif. (Border Report) — Gerry Shuster migrated from the former Yugoslavia to this country in 1969 and bought 17 acres of land in Jacumba, California, about 75 miles east of San Diego.
Shuster says he fell in love with the solitude and has called it home ever since.
But in recent weeks, he has seen thousands of migrants come through his property, which is adjacent to and just north of the border barrier.
If you stand there long enough, you can see smugglers on motorcycles and SUVs dropping off people along a dirt road on the south side of the fence.
The migrants then walk about a quarter mile to where the wall suddenly ends and enter the U.S., making their way around to Shuster’s property.
“What I have been seeing more and more the last few months has been more and more people coming in,” says Shuster.
He says the migrants are destroying his property when walking through and camping out while waiting for Border Patrol agents to pick them up.
“We have a very difficult situation here, they’re knocking our fences down, they don’t obey the rules, they’re burning down our trees, they’re burning down our fence poles, they are coming near our homes, we don’t know who these people are, we really don’t.”
According to Shuster, he and his wife live in a home not too far from where the migrants congregate after crossing the border.
“When you call border patrol they say ‘Mr. Shuster, we cannot do much about this our hands are tied,’ if you call the Sheriff, they don’t even bother to come over.”
Shuster says if this continues, his land will never be the same.
“There will be more and more damages done to our properties all over this area. I’m not the only one, there are quite a few other people out in the same shape I am over here.”
Shuster told Border Report he doesn’t wish anything bad on the migrants, but he did say he hoped they would stop coming or at the very least be more respectful and mindful of his property.