The Latest Breaking News from Keys

PENSACOLA, Fla. — A federal judge on Monday began hearing arguments in a legal battle between Florida and the Biden administration over immigration, a long-running political fight that in recent days has taken center stage in the Florida Keys where hundreds of migrants have arrived by boat.

The U.S. Coast Guard repatriated 273 migrants to Matanzas, Cuba, over the weekend following interdictions off the Florida Keys

MIAMI — Hundreds of Cuban migrants who were stranded on remote islands off a Florida Keys national park for almost a week were shipped to Key West Thursday.

In an end-of-year video message for social media, Cuba’s leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel, recently acknowledged that 2022 was “one of the most challenging of Cuba’s revolutionary history.” He then admitted that 2023 “could be even more difficult,” but that, he added, would be “an attractive challenge for all who feel revolutionary.”

At least 500 migrants have arrived to Florida Keys due to soaring inflation, food shortages and economic turmoil in Cuba and other parts of the Caribbean over the last several days

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.

At least 500 migrants have landed in the Florida Keys over the last several days in what the local sheriff’s office describes as a “crisis.”

Economic turmoil, food shortages and soaring inflation in Cuba and other parts of the Caribbean is spurring the most recent wave of migration

Multiple groups of migrants landed in several locations throughout the Florida Keys New Year’s Day, according to law enforcement sources.