A group of 29 Cuban migrants were detained by the US Border Patrol after arriving off the coast of Florida in a precarious boat.
As reported Walter Slosarchief of the Miami sector of that police force, agents of the Border Patrol and the Office of Customs and Border Protection responded to a “maritime smuggling event that made landfall near Marathon and detained the migrants.”
On March 6, the Coast Guard rescued 12 other Cuban rafters who were drifting about 20 miles from Cayo Anguilla, in the Bahamas, when the boat was about to sink and the crew was in danger of drowning.
By providing this information, the US body shared the rescue information on its social networks with an image with the hashtags #DontTakeToTheSeas (Do not go to sea). Cayo Anguilla is an area where shipwrecks have been recorded.
Between the operations carried out in the United States and the Bahamas, from January of this year to date, a total of 345 rafters have been returned to Cuba.
The group is made up of 46 men and 28 women who had legally left the Island for third countries to follow the route to US territory.
The number of Cubans intercepted upon arrival in the United States, both by sea and by land, is shot, according to official data from the last record, in January. The Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detained 9,827 Cuban migrants that month, about 13 times more than the 732 in the same month of 2020.
For their part, the Mexican authorities returned to Cuba this Wednesday 74 migrants who had been detained when they tried to enter the United States illegally.
The group, which arrived at the José Martí airport in Havana, is made up of 46 men and 28 women who had legally left the island for third countries to follow the route to United States territory, details a report from the state-run Cuban Agency for News (ACN).
So far this year, 1,005 irregular migrants have returned to Cuba through 22 operations, by air and sea.
Of those returned, 581 came from Mexico, 43 from the Bahamas, and 381 were intercepted by the United States Coast Guard.
Cuban immigration authorities recognize an increase in migratory pressure, since in the first two months of the year more than 43% of all migrants returned in 2021 have been registered.
________________________
Collaborate with our work:
The team of 14ymedio is committed to doing serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time becoming a member of our journal. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
