MIAMI — U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped a boat just off shore of Palm Beach Friday morning they say was smuggling migrants from three different countries.
The boat was stopped around 10 a.m. and had 13 people on it from Romania, Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago, said Adam Hoffner, division chief for U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Miami operations.
It was not immediately clear if agents arrested anyone on the boat, and what will happen to the migrants. Hoffner said the incident is under investigation.
The stop comes as South Florida is dealing with the largest influx of migrants — mostly from Cuba and Haiti — in almost a decade. Most of the people arriving, however, are landing much farther south in the Florida Keys, or being stopped by Coast Guard crews off shore of the island chain.
On Thursday, the Border Patrol took into custody 80 people from Cuba who arrived in four separate migrant landings up and down the Keys.
Also on Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard returned 71 people to Cuba who were stopped off the Keys in makeshift vessels in several incidents between Monday and Tuesday, the agency said in a news release.
Coast Guard crews have already stopped 2,982 people from Cuba at sea along the Florida Straits since Oct. 1, which is the beginning of the fiscal year. Last fiscal year, the agency intercepted 6,182 migrants on the water between Cuba and South Florida, the most since fiscal year 2016.
