EL CAJON, California — Customers packed Cory Gautereaux’s small gun store northeast of San Diego on a recent Friday afternoon.
Many of the people buying pistols at Firearms Unlimited California said they were concerned about the massive number of migrants being released onto the local streets after the area became a hub for the crisis at the border — which is just 25 miles from El Cajon, a Southern California suburb of 105,000 people.
Roughly 125,000 migrants have been released onto streets in the San Diego area since September, which has been unsettling for Gautereaux and his customers, they told The Post.
After Texas worked to seal off large swaths of its border with Mexico with razor wire and boots on the ground, more migrants started making their way to California.
The Border Patrol saw a daily average of 1,200 migrants crossing into the San Diego region illegally during the week ending on Feb. 4, while some of Texas’ busiest sectors averaged just hundreds of crossings during that time period. according to government data obtained by CBS News.
In Texas’ Del Rio border area, migrant apprehensions dropped to 200 a day the week of Feb. 4 — compared to the 2,300 daily crossings in December.
“The problem for people that live around the gun store is the street drop offs,” Gautereaux said.
The US Border Patrol has begun busing migrants who claim asylum into the community and releasing them onto the streets, he said.
“That’s driven business to us,” he added.
The issue convinced Keith Carnevale, one of Gautereaux’s customers, to arm his entire family.
“My wife and I have had home defense guns for many years. Recently though with all the stuff that’s happening south of the border and all the people coming over, my concerns have broadened,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s just the people that are coming over to try to find work, I think we have a lot of hostile people that are coming over with ill will, ill intent that will potentially cause chaos.”
Keith’s son, Anthony Carnevale, who came with him to buy a gun of his own, said the area is just not equipped to handle the huge numbers of street releases.
“I don’t think it’s just a matter of the numbers of undocumented people, I think a lot of people are concerned about the state of our own government to be just allowing this and why,” he said.
Local Sharie Finn told The Post that the border issue “one thousand percent” plays a role in her decision to buy a gun, pointing to the Glock pistol in her bag.
She and her husband Wally run an organization that helps families find their missing loved ones — some of whom have been victims of predators who were in the country illegally.
“I have that with me everywhere I go,” Sharie Finn said.
Migrants continue to be released onto the streets in and around San Diego because Border Patrol processing centers in the region have more than twice as many as they can hold, according to agency data recently obtained by The Post.
El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells acknowledges his residents don’t feel safe because of the flood of illegal border crossers into his city..
“We see the massive amounts of violence that’s happening, a lot from the immigrant situation, but a lot from the homeless situation as well,” Wells told The Post, adding: “People are frightened and I do believe they’re arming themselves more.”
The Border Patrol can only hold migrants for a period of up to 72 hours, and challenge of processing them quickly while also conducting background checks has become overwhelming.
In one case in March 2023, border agents arrested and released Afghan national Mohammad Kharwin, 48, whose name appeared on the terror watchlist.
The FBI notified Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that he was a suspected member of the US-designated terror group Hezb-e-Islami, but that didn’t happen until almost a year after his release.
ICE arrested Kharwin on Feb. 28 in San Antonio, Texas, but an immigration judge subsequently ordered his release again without knowing of his alleged ties to a group that has carried out numerous deadly attacks on US soldiers in Afghanistan.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told The Post that Kharwin is now in custody.
