10 migrants arrested and 4 escape in separate attempts in the Keys
U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested 10 people in the Florida Keys this week in two separate migration attempts, the agency announced.
Nine people were arrested between Sunday and Monday in Key Largo, and one person was arrested in Key Colony Beach, a small incorporated community near the Middle Keys city of Marathon, Chief Border Patrol Agent John Modlin said in a statement Tuesday on Twitter.
Modlin, who is in charge of Border Patrol Sector Miami, said that four people got away.
Details of the arrests were still pending Tuesday. It wasn’t immediately clear from where the migrants left, but wherever it was, they will be sent back.
Maritime migration from Cuba has slowed significantly since early 2016 when the Obama administration ended a Cold War-era policy that essentially made Cubans who landed on U.S. soil refugees and allowed them to apply for permanent residency. Those caught at sea were sent back.
Anticipating an end to the “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy, many Cubans in the lead-up to the change left the island nation, and landings some weeks in the Keys and South Florida were daily events.
Modlin also announced the arrest of eight people from Haiti who were caught by West Palm Beach Sector agents in Gulfstream, Florida, last Thursday.
They arrived in a Grady White cabin cruiser, which, according to a photo Modlin posted, landed on a Gulfstream beach. Agents also found two packages of marijuana on the vessel, according to Modlin.
