MIAMI — Twelve Cuban migrants arrived in a homemade boat on the sands of a former Miami Beach hotel Thursday night, according to the Border Patrol.
The landing was one of nearly a dozen this week in South Florida — mostly in the Florida Keys — as the region continues to be the destination for those participating in the largest maritime exodus from Cuba in nearly a decade.
The boat arrived at 7:30 p.m. in Miami Beach and the people were taken into custody, said Adam Hoffner, division chief for U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Miami operations. They landed around 67th Street and Collins Avenue, near the vacant Deauville hotel that’s set to be demolished.
The Border Patrol has encountered nearly 1,000 Cuban migrants since Oct. 1 — the beginning of the fiscal year. And the Coast Guard has intercepted 1,374 people fleeing Cuba sailing the Florida Straits in that same time frame.
At this pace, the number of Cubans intercepted at sea will double the amount of last fiscal year, which was already the highest in almost eight years.
Since the “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy that allowed those who reached U.S. soil to stay in the country ended in 2017, all those stopped on sea or land are supposed to be sent back to Cuba. But so many people are arriving lately that immigration officials are overwhelmed, and most of those not caught at sea have been released to family members and given orders to report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
Most of the people stopped at sea are placed on a Coast Guard cutter and returned to Cuba. The Coast Guard said Friday that it had just returned 68 people to Cuba who were stopped in several incidents off the Keys between Monday and Tuesday.
The Border Patrol said that 42 people from Cuba, including 15 children, were stranded on an island in the Dry Tortugas Thursday and had to be rescued.
On Thursday morning, 18 men and four women from Cuba arrived on Grassy Key in the Middle Keys on a small wooden sailboat. One of the men had a head injury and was flown by helicopter air ambulance to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.
His condition Friday was not immediately available.
Between Sunday and Tuesday, at least 110 Cuban migrants arrived in several landings throughout the Keys, according to the Border Patrol.
Also last weekend, the Coast Guard stopped a boat off Palm Beach in what authorities said was a migrant smuggling attempt. Two people aboard the center console vessel were arrested on smuggling charges. Also on board were four Cubans, two Chinese citizens, one person from Jamaica and the other from the Bahamas, the Border Patrol said in a statement.
