MIAMI, United States. – The crew of the United States Coast Guard cutter Paul Clark repatriated 99 Cubans this Thursday, after several rescue operations off the coast of Florida, the Coast Guard said in a statement. a statement.
As a result of the repatriation of almost a hundred Cubans, Lieutenant Commander Mark Cobb, of the Seventh Coast Guard District, recalled that tropical storm Fiona had just formed in the Eastern Caribbean Sea, which “will have impacts throughout the Caribbean,” he said.
“If people decide to try to migrate to the US illegally, this time it will not be a question of if lives are lost, but when,” he said.
Every week, dozens of Cuban rafters They approach the coast of Florida, where they are generally intercepted by Coast Guard agents and then deported to the Island. However, many of them have perished at sea before reaching land.
This Wednesday, agents from the US Border Patrol and the Florida Keys Sheriff’s Office detained 14 Cuban rafters who landed in Islamorada, according to reported on Twitter Agent Walter N. Slosar.
Last Tuesday, the crew of the US Coast Guard cutter Paul Clark repatriated 60 Cuban rafters, after eight operations off the coast of Florida, the US agency itself said in a statement.
Last weekend alone, the Border Patrol intercepted 78 Cuban rafters in five different operations. The migrants crossed the Strait of Florida in rustic boats and made landfall in the southern keys of the peninsula, reported also Slozar.
Also last Sunday, the Coast Guard repatriated another 50 Cuban migrants that had been intercepted after crossing the Straits of Florida.
Recently, the United States embassy in Havana warned Cuban rafters that it would strengthen surveillance in the Straits of Florida, with a view to dealing with the increase in irregular maritime migration.
The diplomatic legation on the Island published on its social network account Twitter several tweets accompanied by a statement, in which he assures that the migratory crisis has become a concern of National Security.
“The Joint Homeland Security Task Force increased its operational posture to address a recent increase in irregular maritime migration. Agencies are increasing patrols and law enforcement by land, air and sea, day and night,” reads one of the Embassy publications.
The migration agreements between Cuba and the United States establish that people who are intercepted on the high seas will be returned to the island.
Cuba is experiencing a massive exodus that has surpassed the Mariel crisis and the rafters’ crisis of 1994. Since October 1, 2021, the beginning of the current fiscal year, only the crews of the US Coast Guard travel by sea. have intercepted 5,689 Cubans, a figure that exceeds the number of migrants from the island intercepted each fiscal year from 2017 to 2021.
According to the agency, the statistics have behaved as follows: 5,396 Cubans intercepted in fiscal year 2016; 1,468 in 2017; 259 in 2018; 313 in 2019; 49 in 2020 and 838 in 2021.
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