More than 150 Haitian migrants stopped off the Florida Keys in an overloaded sailboat
The Coast Guard stopped an overloaded sailboat Tuesday off the Florida Keys packed with more than 150 people migrating from Haiti.
It is becoming increasingly common for Haitian migrants and smugglers to use the Keys as their destination, as opposed to areas on the mainland.
Since October, Haitians have been leaving their homeland by the hundreds, fleeing gang violence, political instability and poverty, to reach the island chain.
It’s the largest exodus of Haitian migrants since 2004.
The boat stopped Tuesday had 153 people on board about 45 miles southeast of Islamorada, the Coast Guard said, describing the vessel in a statement as a “sail freighter.”
SURGE FROM CUBA
The Keys have long been a landing spot for people migrating from Cuba, and that hasn’t changed.
In fact, South Florida and the island chain are in the midst of a surge of Cuban migration in numbers not seen in nearly six years, right before the Obama administration abruptly ended the socalled “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy that served as an incentive for people fleeing the communist nation.
Wet-foot, dry-foot allowed those from Cuba to stay in this country if they arrived on dry land above the high-water mark. Those who did could stay and apply for permanent residency after a year. Those caught at sea were returned to Cuba. Now, most who are caught — whether intercepted on the water or after they reach land —are taken back.
In the past eight months, the Coast Guard has stopped 1,952 people along the Florida Straits en route to South Florida — a number that dwarfs the 49 people interdicted at sea just two years ago. People from Cuba are willing to risk their lives and being returned because of deteriorating political and economic conditions at home.
NEW TREND FOR HAITIANS
But the arrival of large numbers of people from Haiti to the archipelago is a trend that began in November. Since then, five boats overloaded with Haitian migrants landed, mostly in the Upper Keys.
Two of those landings were just offshore of the ultra-wealthy Ocean Reef Club in north Key Largo. In one of those incidents, the largest landing in recent history, 356 people arrived at the resort in March.
Another boat, also in March, arrived off an
oceanfront neighborhood in Summerland Key about 20 miles east of Key West.
Many more people are fleeing Haiti but without completing their journey. They’re being stopped by the Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection crews, as well as authorities in other Caribbean nations and the Bahamas.
Since October, the Coast Guard has intercepted more than 5,000 people from Haiti, mostly in dangerously overloaded migrant vessels. That’s more than double the amount of people stopped in all of the previous fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1 through the end of September.
Others are dying, according to the Coast Guard. The agency categorizes deaths as either confirmed or “assessed.” The latter term means those lost at sea whose bodies were never found.
Since Oct. 1, Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer Nicole Groll said, there have been 23 confirmed deaths among people of varying nationalities migrating to the United States by sea and 70 presumed dead “because we were never able to recover a body.”