MIAMI — A worrying rise in the number of Haitian refugees arriving by boat off the Florida coast is raising questions about a long-standing immigration practice that determines why some fleeing migrants are processed into the United States and others are quickly returned back to Haiti despite making it into U.S. territorial waters.
In at least four different boat arrivals in the past five months, Haitian migrants who jumped off unseaworthy, overloaded vessels and into the waters off the Florida Keys were plucked out by federal agents and brought to land for processing — while those who stayed onboard were transferred to U.S. Coast Guard cutters for repatriation.
One of the latest examples of the practice came Saturday, when 113 Haitian nationals on board an overloaded sailboat jumped into the shallow waters off the Florida Keys while 200 others remained on the vessel. Those who remained on board the boat were placed on a Coast Guard cutter for repatriation to Haiti.
