More Than 300 Haitian Migrants Land in the Florida Keys
Authorities took 113 Haitian migrants into custody after they jumped off a vessel making landfall near Key Largo Saturday. 200 stayed on board.
Published August 6, 2022 • Updated on August 7, 2022 at 7:46 pm
2:45
Influx of Migrants Continues to Rise in the Florida Keys
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More than 300 Haitian migrants landed in a vessel near Key Largo off of Ocean Reef on Saturday at approximately 4:30 p.m. according to the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol Miami sector. NBC 6’s Cristian Benavides has the latest.
More than 300 Haitian migrants landed in a vessel near Key Largo off of Ocean Reef on Saturday at approximately 4:30 p.m. according to the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol Miami sector.
United States Border Patrol Miami sector took 113 Haitian migrants who jumped off the boat into custody, Chief Patrol Agent Walter N. Slosar said.
200 of the remaining migrants who stayed onboard the vessel were taken into custody by the United States Coast Guard.
According to officials, none of the migrants were seriously hurt and it could have ended a lot worse. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Division Chief Adam Hoffner said the dangerous voyage was likely organized by smugglers.
"We conducted a medical screening of all of the migrants, most had some mild effects from dehydration. Four of them were taken to a local hospital and were treated for dehydration. We did identify two suspected smugglers possibly associated with this event," Hoffner said.
"The smugglers have no regard for the migrants or their lives. The more migrants they put on board their boat, the more money they make," Hoffner said.
This is a dangerous trend that has been on the rise, Hoffner said.
The United States Border Patrol Miami sector is investigating with Homeland Security to identify the smugglers who crammed the migrants onto the vessel.
A few days later
MIAMI — A migrant sailboat overloaded with people arrived in the shallow waters Monday evening off the Middle Florida Keys, federal officials said.
© U.S. Coast Guard/TNS/TNSSeveral
They were part of a large migrant group of hundreds of people who arrived in an overloaded sailboat. Another sailboat carrying Haitian migrants arrived in the Middle Keys city of Marathon on Monday, Aug. 8, 2022.
The people on board are likely Haitians — and their arrival comes just two days after a group of more than 300 people from Haiti arrived in a sailboat that grounded off the exclusive Ocean Reef resort community in north Key Largo.
The Keys have been the most frequent landing spot for fleeing Cubans and Haitians for more than a year. However, migrant activity within the island chain ramped up dramatically in the past week.
Between Thursday and Saturday, the Border Patrol took into custody 263 people, including the Haitian migrants, from a total of 16 landings, according to the agency.
Also last week, the U.S. Coast Guard said it is searching for five people who were among a total of 15 from Cuba whose vessel capsized Friday off Sugarloaf Key in the Lower Keys.
Two people from that boat were found dead, and eight others were rescued. As of Monday night, the search for the missing migrants continued.
It was not immediately clear how many people were on board the boat that arrived Monday, but residents posted on social media that they saw at least 100 people walking through neighborhood streets escorted by local police and federal agents.
