MIAMI — A group of up to 70 Haitians arrived Thursday afternoon in a migrant sailboat off Virginia Key, a barrier island off Miami that leads to Key Biscayne.
Some jumped off the boat and swam to land, aided by civilian boaters, while others stayed on the vessel, Michael Silva, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told reporters during a press briefing.
In total, 21 adults and four teenagers made it to land, and roughly 40 remained on the boat, Lt. Pete Sanchez with the city of Miami Fire Rescue Department said at the briefing.
The arrivals revealed they left Port-de-Paix, a city on the northwest coast of Haiti, on Sunday and spent five days at sea. Their boat was taking on water when it neared Virginia Key, Sanchez said, adding the people were “shaken up.”
Officer Michael Vega, with the city of Miami Police Department, said the boat arrived off the beach around 2:40 p.m.
The people on land were taken by U.S. Border Patrol agents to be processed, according to Silva. It was not immediately clear what will happen to them.
“What the outcome is, I don’t know,” he said.
It’s also not clear what will happen to those who remained on the boat, but in most migrant arrivals, people who make landfall are taken by Border Patrol for processing. Those stopped at sea are placed aboard Coast Guard cutters and returned to their homelands.
Adam Hoffner, division chief with U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Miami operations, said agents were investigating the landing.
Sanchez noted nobody on land required hospitalization, although some had mild hypothermia. A Miami Beach Fire Rescue boat crew took one man from the boat to Jackson Memorial Hospital to be treated for hypothermia, Sanchez said.
He added most of the people were dehydrated and medics. Police and agents distributed water and blankets to them at the scene.
Some who jumped off the boat had trouble swimming to shore and were brought in by civilian boaters.
“We are grateful to them,” Sanchez said.
“Humanitarian crisis”
The fiberglass sloop that brought the migrants to Virginia Key differed from the typical overloaded rickety and wooden freighters that have been arriving in South Florida — mostly in the Florida Key — since November 2021.
Additionally, the latest boat arrived two days after a yacht carrying at least 12 people, though likely more, to a beach on Fort Lauderdale. Border Patrol agents apprehended nine Haitians, two Brazilians and one person from the Bahamas on Tuesday night. The original report of the landing to Fort Lauderdale police, however, indicated about 25 migrants came ashore.
Both arrivals comes as South Florida is on the receiving end of an exodus from Cuba and Haiti not seen in decades. Both nations are experiencing increased political and economic turmoil, and Haiti is also plagued by deteriorating safety conditions caused by rampant gang violence.
The flight from both nations has been ongoing for more than a year. But the situation in the Keys escalated between Christmas and New Year’s weekend when close to 500 migrants from Cuba arrived at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas National park about 70 miles west of Key West, prompting the unprecedented decision to close a national park.
Meanwhile, hundreds more people in smaller groups arrived from Cuba up and down the Florida Keys in several landings every day. On Jan. 3, an overloaded migrant sailboat arrived off the coast of Key Largo with 130 men and women from Haiti on board.
Local Keys officials like Sheriff Rick Ramsay called the situation a “humanitarian crisis” and slammed state and federal officials for what he considered their lack of response.
Then on Jan. 6, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order activating the Florida National Guard and tasking state law enforcement agencies such as Florida Highway Patrol, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Florida Department of Law Enforcement with helping federal agents and the Coast Guard patrol the waters surrounding the Keys for incoming migrants.
