Seven migrants arrive at Ocean Reef, among more than 70 who landed in Keys on weekend
With the arrival Monday morning of seven people from Cuba on the shores of Ocean Reef, an exclusive gated community and resort in north Key Largo, the number of migrants who made landfall in the Florida Keys since Saturday has topped 75, according to Border Patrol officials.
The group Monday consisted of five men and two women who arrived in a homemade, rustic boat, said Adam Hoffner, division chief for U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Miami operations. They told agents they came from Holguin, a city in eastern Cuba, Hoffner said.
On Sunday, 41 people arrived in two separate landings in the Keys, Walter Slosar, sector Miami chief Border Patrol agent, said in a statement on Twitter.
▪ Thirty-one people landed on an island in the Marquesas Keys, a group of islands west of Key West.
▪ And 10 arrived in Islamorada in the Upper Keys, Slosar said.
▪ In the Middle Keys city of Marathon, one man from Cuba arrived on shore in a one-person kayak, according to the Border Patrol.
▪ On Saturday, a total of 27 migrants made it to shore in the Keys in two landings — one in Long Key in the Upper Keys and another in the Marquesas — Slosar said.
The landings are part of a marked increase in maritime migration from both Cuba and Haiti, with the Keys being the most frequent ending point of the dangerous journeys.
Since the beginning of October, the U.S. Coast Guard said it’s stopped 4,440 people along the Florida Straits trying to reach the country. That’s the highest number of migrants intercepted at sea in more than six years.
The agency said cutter crews on Saturday returned 203 people to Cuba who were interdicted in 14 separate incidents off the island chain between last Tuesday and Thursday.
Over the same time frame, the Coast Guard says it’s stopped more than 6,800 people from Haiti who were heading for the U.S. That’s the largest exodus of Haitians in two decades.
Both countries are experiencing deteriorating political and economic conditions within their borders. And, Haiti is enduring a period of rampant gang violence that has made life there so dangerous that citizens are increasingly willing to trade uncertainty and treacherous seas for even the slightest chance of a better life in the United States.
This story was originally published August 22, 2022 at 5:16 PM.
