MIAMI, United States. — A group of 42 Cuban rafters was intercepted Thursday by US authorities shortly after landing on islands near the Florida Keys.
The operation was carried out by joint forces of the Border Patrol and the United States Coast Guard.
“Yesterday, a group of 42 Cuban immigrants were taken into US Border Patrol custody after making landfall on islands off the Florida Keys. The migrants were stranded and located by the Coast Guard,” Chief Patrol Agent Walter N. Slosar said on Twitter.
The official, who periodically reports on the arrival of Cuban rafters to the Florida coast, indicated that among the migrants there were 15 minors.
This Thursday, the US Border Patrol detained 22 Cuban migrants who crossed the Strait of Florida in a rustic sailboat and who made landfall in Cayo Maratón, according to information released this Thursday by Slosar himself.
The report added that one of the Cubans “was taken to a local area hospital for evaluation.”
Weekly, dozens and even hundreds of Cubans arrive on the Florida coast in what is already considered the largest mass exodus by sea recorded since the 1994 rafter crisis.
In general, Cubans are intercepted by the authorities and then deported to the Island in Coast Guard crews.
In fiscal year 2022, that agency, a unit of the US Armed Forces, returned more than 6,000 migrants to Cuban territory, the highest number recorded in the last 20 years.
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