MIAMI — Border Patrol agents assigned to the Florida Keys have taken into custody up to 150 people from Cuba since last Wednesday as the migrant exodus from the island nation to the archipelago is on track to reach a seven-year high.
Since Oct. 1, the Border Patrol has responded to more than 216 landings in the Keys and encountered over 3,000 migrants from both Cuba and Haiti, Walter Slosar, chief Border Patrol agent for South Florida, said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon on Twitter.
During that same time frame, the U.S. Coast Guard has stopped 4,822 Cubans along the Florida Straits trying to reach South Florida, the service said Monday after releasing a statement saying that it had just returned 30 people to Cuba who were intercepted at sea during several interdictions since Friday.
That’s the highest number of people from Cuba caught migrating by boat to South Florida since 2017, the Coast Guard said. From Oct. 1, 2016, to the end of September 2017 — the fiscal year — 5,396 Cuban migrants were caught along the Straits fleeing their homeland.
Numbers dwindled to just under 50 people in fiscal year 2020 due to the end of “wet-foot, dry-foot,” the U.S. policy that served as an incentive to people hoping to flee Cuba because it allowed those who reached the country to stay and apply for permanent residency after a year. Those caught on the ocean were returned to Cuba.
The Obama administration abruptly ended wet-foot, dry-foot in one of its last major foreign policy decisions in January 2017.
Migrant activity over the past two years has ramped back up dramatically, however, because political and economic conditions within Cuba continue to deteriorate.
The Border Patrol said that 24 Cuban migrants arrived in Key West on Tuesday. The day before, 33 migrants arrived in two separate landings in different areas in the Keys, Slosar said.
Between Saturday and Sunday, a total of 27 Cubans made landfall in the Keys, according to the Border Patrol.
On Friday, 42 Cubans were taken into custody after they arrived in a wooded fishing boat in the Marquesas, a group of islands located west of Key West, Slosar said.
And, on Wednesday, 20 people were caught after they arrived on Big Pine Key in the Lower Keys in a homemade vessel on which they said they sailed from Cuba.
The numbers of Haitians fleeing their country destine for South Florida is even higher, with the Coast Guard saying its patrols have stopped 7,173 people along the Florida Straits and Windward and Mona Passages since October.
Haitians are fleeing not only political persecution and dire economic conditions, but also a rampant increase in gang violence in the wake of the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.
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