Naturopathic Doctor in Jacumba, CA

Beneath the heavy gray of yet another June Gloom day, I drive through San Diego, then head east into the Sonoran Desert towards Jacumba Hot Springs Hotel. Jacumba was established in the 1920s but has been more or less defunct since the 80s. Until now.

The sun breaks over the rolling mountains that come into view. There are marble-like boulders scattered in piles, and I marvel at the landscape that has a familiar look, but an alien feel because I’ve never ventured to this part of California. I follow signs and see a long dark line in the distance, at first thinking it’s some sort of water transportation equipment, but soon learn it’s the border wall with Mexico.

The hotel’s diverse yet minimal decor is a mix of Spanish and Moroccan influences. The lighting is romantic and soothing with rooms clean and peaceful, new yet with natural character built in. The hideaway bar takes one to a different vibe—a dark eclectic saloon, with antique oil paintings of seductive women, herbal tinctures, mezcal cocktails, and DJ’s playing coolly curated tunes late into the night.

Jacumba is a border town with a rich history due to its famous healing waters. The town declined after various structure fires, and the opening of interstate 8 in the late 1960s that rerouted traffic away from the town. Jacumba's owners are Melissa Strukel, Jeff Osborne, and Corbin Winters. Strukel desired to exit a career of event planning and drove by the defunct hotel in the almost ghost town and instantly knew she needed to reopen the hotel and revitalize the town. She enlisted the help of Winters, her colleague, and Osborne, a real estate professional who was a past client of Strukel and Winters'. They planned his off grid wedding some years back. The three all moved out to Jacumba four years ago and began their project. The hotel was fully opened earlier this year.

Ownerships shows me around the desert town and shares plans for the various empty, rundown structures. A saloon over there, clubhouse here, coffee shop there. We meet a couple locals along the way and they all seem genuinely happy. One local excitedly invites me into her home to check out her little shop of healthy mushrooms tinctures. Another charmingly waves me into his art studio and home. He shows me his robot sculptures and the various tools he uses to create them. Then, I’m shown the bathhouse, an old structure that burnt down in the 1920s. Just the walls and bones are left. Later, I’ll watch a live blue grass performance under the stars in this unusual venue. The tour and the local run-ins lead me to conclude that the revitalization of this unique spot are undoubtedly uplifting the town.

After our short walk through the town, we turn on a dirt path that leads to the mineral spring lake. The lake was dried up before Jacumba’s owners arrived, so they opened up the wells and planted natural flora to help the ecosystem flourish. Strukel shares it was important for them to create a way for visitors and the local community to be able to enjoy the mineral spring waters for free. The town, the lake, the live events, it’s all part of the Jacumba experience.

Knowing the care the owners have for the community and land helps me enjoy the luxurious stay all the more. Back at the property, I am served a pitcher of watermelon mimosas in the shade of my cabana next to the pool. I munch on the best guacamole and a handful of guests in the vicinity enjoy fresh oysters. Jacumba’s produce comes straight from the farms of Imperial Valley and the seafood comes from nearby Baja. I spend the day soaking in one of the two large pools and sunbathing in the mild desert air—Jacumba has an elevation of 3,000 feet which helps the weather stay mild—as palm fronds sway overhead. The owners hope the mild weather will lure visitors in the summer when Joshua Tree and Palm Springs are basically unbearable.

As mentioned, the natural mineral pools are known to have healing properties. In fact, before I came out to Jacumba, I did a strenuous pilates workout. This weekend was the first time this year I was going to see myself in a bathing suit, and to my extreme disappointment, I woke up the morning after the pilates class with an injured shoulder muscle I could barely move. But after a 20 minute soak in the pool it was completely gone. I mean, it’s real! Real old fashioned medicine.

This brings me to an interesting point. Since the 1920s, and through the 1940s, the US had many hot spring resorts dabbled across the country as hot springs had become famous for their therapeutic benefits. It was believed that the natural thermal waters could cure any number of ailments, including arthritis and polio. Sadly, the baths faded as a medical treatment with the advent of modern medical science and the proliferation of Big Pharma.

Strukel mentions this fact to me and I immediately think, “nothing modern would have healed my shoulder that quickly.” So perhaps in this busy world, where you can find yourself talking to bots, scrolling mindlessly, and ingesting anti-inflammatories like band-aid candy, we need to go back to the beginning. We need musicians playing instruments outdoors under the stars, conversation with people from all walks of life, nutritious farm fresh food, comfy beds, and of course, natural hot springs as medicine.

Jacumba is available for reservations here.

‍

Jacumba Valley, Calif. — Encounters between U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and migrants crossing the southern border without authorization decreased by 40% in the three weeks since new asylum restrictions took effect.

In announcing the executive actions on June 4, President Biden said these measures were needed to bring “order to the border.”

His administration points to the latest statistics as proof that the new policies are succeeding.

“The president’s actions are working because of their tough response to illegal crossings,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said at a press conference in Tucson, Arizona on Wednesday.

“We are removing more noncitizens without a legal basis to stay here.”

But the number of people arrested while attempting to cross the border declined over the past five months, and not all of that is attributable to U.S. policy. Mexico also scaled up its enforcement and has been stopping migrants from trekking north toward the U.S.

Mayorkas says the administration has doubled the number of expedited removals in the last three weeks, with more than 100 international repatriation flights to 20 countries.

According to the DHS, arrests haven’t been this low since January 2021.

So far on the California border, there’s been a noticeable shift: up until last month, the San Diego sector had been the place with most undocumented migrant crossings.

Zaydee Sanchez for NPR

Zaydee Sanchez for NPR

Zaydee Sanchez for NPR

Just weeks ago, hundreds of migrants still waited in campsites scattered throughout California's Jacumba Valley, a remote area 80 miles east of San Diego. There, they could wait to be picked up by Border Patrol and petition for asylum.

Lately, these locations look mostly empty, and makeshift tents flap in the wind. But some people still cross the border and end up here — including a family with three small children NPR encountered at one of the sweltering desert camps.

One of the children, a 7-year-old, was seriously dehydrated and seemed about to pass out. As humanitarian volunteers gave him first aid, the child's parents explained that the family had walked for eight hours through the desert.

The journey was challenging– they evaded snakes and mountain lions– but staying in their native Mexico was not an option.

The family owns an auto repair shop in the southern state of Michoacán, where they were extorted and feared for their lives.

The mother, Jazmin Mora, says the family first fled to Tijuana, hoping to make it to the United States where they have family. But after just one month in the Mexican border city, they encountered violence there too, so they decided to try to cross.

Zaydee Sanchez for NPR

Zaydee Sanchez for NPR

Zaydee Sanchez for NPR

“We moved around to several other places, but the reality is all Mexico is unsafe for everybody,” said Mora.

Her family’s story embodies what immigration analysts have told NPR about the newer border measures: deterrence policies alone do not work to curtail undocumented immigration in the long run.

Although the Biden administration touts these policies as a success, migrants continue to arrive at the border, although they stay on the Mexican side to ‘wait and see’ when to cross.

The announcement of lower numbers of border encounters and higher numbers of removals comes just before the first presidential debate on Thursday, in which immigration is expected to be front and center.

Far away from the politics of Washington D.C., neither migrants nor the locals had much to say about the border policies. They told NPR they see it as politics as usual –no real, lasting solutions.

Chinese migrants have reportedly been filmed crossing the U.S. border and then handing themselves in to authorities.

Footage posted on social media shows a group of people "crossing illegally" in Jacumba, California. They can be seen walking along a railway track and then heading away from it into the mountainous, dry terrain.

A second clip shows them giving themselves up to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers (CBP), standing in a line and sorting through their belongings. The group is made up of men, women, a few older people and at least two who appear to be children.

Chinese migrants crossing the U.S. border have made headlines several times in the past, including at the beginning of the year when the border was thrown into crisis with huge numbers of people trying to get into the country.

Newsletter

The Bulletin

Your Morning Starts Here

Begin your day with a curated outlook of top news around the world and why it matters.

I want to receive special offers and promotions from Newsweek

By clicking on SIGN ME UP, you agree to Newsweek's Terms of Use & Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.

The videos were posted by Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin, who wrote in the caption: "Back in Jacumba, California, this morning, where we just witnessed this group of dozens of Chinese nationals cross illegally.

"They have given themselves up to Border Patrol, expecting to be released into the U.S. like the massive majority of the Chinese who have come before them here in recent months."

Newsweek has sent an email and left a message with the CBP's press office, as well as the San Diego Sherriff's Department, for official information.

On Sunday, CBS News' 60 Minutes did a story on a TikTok trend giving step-by-step instructions to Chinese people.

Information ranged from tips on how to hire smugglers and detailed directions on how to get through a specific gap in the border fence, east of San Diego, according to the report.

Last year, more than 31,000 Chinese citizens were taken in by law enforcement while trying to cross from Mexico into the U.S., according to official CBP data. This is significantly more than the average of 1,500 per year for the decade before.

In May, Foreign Policy magazine looked into the reasons Chinese people had given for wanting to get into the U.S.

Many people cited China's slower recovery from the COVID pandemic, which saw emigration from the nation growing in general.

Others claimed they had been victims of human rights abuses—something often vindicated by the U.S.'s 55 percent rate of acceptance of Chinese asylum claims.

On top of this, Ecuador became visa-free for people with Chinese passports in 2015, providing an easier starting point for many taking the journey to the border.

Last October, a national security analyst at IRIS Independent Research, Rebecca Grant, told Newsweek that the rising number of Chinese nationals trying to enter the U.S. could be a security risk.

She said: "It kind of goes to the question of: are any of these here on China's orders? We know that China is using everything that they have, every bit of espionage, to spy on our military and our high technology.

"And we know China's government is not our friend, so this dramatic upswing, I think it could definitely present a potential national security risk."

Newsweek has contacted the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment.

A Turkish migrant admitted to a journalist that he crossed the U.S. southern border illegally, warning that any "psychopath" could enter the country under similar circumstances.

The unnamed migrant told Fox News' Bill Melugin that he paid a cartel roughly $10,000 and sold everything he owned to enter the U.S. through Jacumba, California, part of San Diego County.

"In fact, American people is right, completely true. Who comes into this country? They don't know. OK, I'm good. But how if they're not good? How if they're killers, psychopath, else? No guarantee of that," said the Turk, adding that people aside from himself are "not normal."

Asked if he was stopped by any federal agents, the man replied that there was "no security check, no background check."

The migrant described an intensive 24-day journey that led him across the world, through multiple countries and continents. He traveled through Qatar, Dubai, Egypt, South Africa and Brazil before he arrived in Central America and later Mexico to reach his ultimate destination.

Melugin, who posted a video of the verbal exchange on his X feed, added that the migrant also told him that he previously attempted to enter the country legally and ran into too many pitfalls.

The man was "rejected for visa multiple times so just decided to walk across illegally & was stunned at how easy it was," Melugin wrote.

The Los Angeles Times reported that San Diego County is home to one of the busiest border sectors, with 37,370 migrants crossing there in April.

A longtime critic of the federal government's role in exacerbating rising numbers in San Diego County and the U.S. is San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, who this week was the lone official on the county's five-member board to vote against a local $19 million migrant processing center.

"This decision reflects my unwavering stance that we cannot continue to merely pass the problem of illegal immigration onto other parts of the country, thereby becoming complicit in the Biden administration's failure to enforce immigration laws effectively," Desmond told Newsweek in a statement.

He called the ongoing immigration problem "unprecedented," alluding to more than 147,000 street releases in San Diego in the past eight months.

El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells told Newsweek this month that the San Diego sector's crossings in April surpassed all other sectors in border encounters for the first time in 25 years. The 37,370 encounters were higher than numbers in Tucson (31,240), El Paso (30,410) and Del Rio (10,275).

"It is completely beyond my comprehension that something like this could have happened in America," Wells said. "Look, there's always been an immigration debate. We've been through amnesty. It's always been a hot topic.

"But numbers were a tenth of what we're seeing....We've gotten away from the whole vetting process."

Turkish migrants, whether illegal or not, do not represent a large number in terms of general migrant populations in the U.S.

The Turkish Coalition of America, which is not affiliated with the U.S. and Turkish governments, provides "conservative" estimates of about 350,000 Americans of Turkish descent living across the U.S. and in all major cities. The largest concentrations are in the New York/New Jersey area and California.

A 2019 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau showed 212,489 people of Turkish descent living legally in the country.