13 Cuban migrants land on a Key West beach as attempts to reach the U.S. climb
The U.S. Border Patrol on Tuesday took 13 Cuban migrants into custody after the group landed on a Key West beach in a homemade boat.
Border Patrol responded to Higgs Beach at about 6:45 a.m. to find 12 men and one woman who said they had left Cuba the day before, said Adam Hoffner, the agency’s spokesman.
They will likely be sent back to Cuba aboard a Coast Guard cutter.
It’s the second time in four days that people from Cuba have made it to shore in the Florida Keys. Migration attempts have spiked as the island nation remains mired in economic, political and healthcare crises.
Fourteen migrants made it to the Upper Keys on Friday morning in a rustic wooden boat. They told Border Patrol agents they were at sea for six days, a spokesman for the agency said.
On Saturday, the Coast Guard said a good Samaritan spotted a man floating on a makeshift raft near Fowey Rocks, which is a few miles from Key Biscayne. The man, who needed immediate medical care, said he left Cuba with three other people who had died, the Coast Guard said. He had been adrift for 10 days.
On Aug. 3, Border Patrol detained six men from Cuba after they landed in a makeshift boat in the small Middle Keys city of Key Colony Beach at about 3:15 a.m.
This story was originally published August 31, 2021 at 2:11 PM.
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