MIAMI — The U.S. Coast Guard stopped a migrant boat with about 40 people on board off the Florida Keys Wednesday afternoon.
Coast Guard crews and agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations stopped the homemade boat off Ramrod Key in the Lower Keys around 1 p.m., Petty Officer Nicole Groll said.
The maritime service would not comment on where the people were from, but an image it released on Twitter Wednesday evening showed the type of makeshift vessel commonly used by Cuban migrants.
Since they were stopped at sea, the people will likely be placed on a Coast Guard cutter and returned to their home country.
The interception comes as both the federal and state government have increased resources to the Florida Keys to deal with a heavy influx of migrants from both Cuba and Haiti since late last year. The situation reached a head over the Christmas holidays when the government was forced to close down Dry Tortugas National Park off Key West because so many migrants landed there.
The DeSantis administration issued an executive order in January ordering the National Guard and several state law enforcement agencies to send personnel, aircraft and boats to the island chain to help patrol the waters for migrant vessels.
DeSantis extended the executive order in March.
The federal government followed by ordering more Coast Guard and other agency personnel and assets to the area.
The combined effort worked. The Keys went from seeing several migrant landings per day, some large, to sometimes weeks going by without one.
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