So many people from Cuba are arriving in the Florida Keys that days could go by before federal officials are able to pick up migrants on the side of U.S. 1 to be processed, according to local law enforcement.
Since Friday, more than 500 Cubans arrived in the island chain. So many landed in a group of sparsely inhabited islands off Key West that the federal government was forced to close the Dry Tortugas National Park on Sunday.
The situation is frustrating local officials. Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay issued a statement Monday calling the scenes playing out on the sides of the Keys’ only major highway a “federal failure” that is “creating a humanitarian crisis.”
