MIAMI, United States. – The young Cuban Yariel Alfonso Puerta, a 11J protester who jumped into the sea last Friday to evade the trial against him, is in the custody of the United States Coast Guard, as confirmed this Monday to 14ymedio Yamilé Puerta, the mother of the rafter.
Alfonso Puerta and a friend, Alioski Quintero González, were intercepted by US Coast Guard agents in the Straits of Florida, also confirmed on their social networks the journalist Mario J. Pentón.
In accordance with 14ymedio, Alfonso Puerta set sail from the Island with his friend in a homemade raft with a sail and four oars. “That same day, they were going to look for him to take him to court for having demonstrated on 11J,” indicates that medium.
Meanwhile, the Cubalex Legal Information Center, the 27-year-old faces a six-year prison sentence for the alleged crimes of “public disorder”, “disobedience” and “resistance”.
Now his mother hopes that the US authorities will not deport him back to the island. “If they return my son, his life will be miserable,” he told 14ymedio from Spain, where he lives.
This weekend, the young man’s mother spread a videocall with the young man at the moment when the Cuban coastguard intercepted him and, even so, they let him continue forward.
In that recording, the young man declared: “I am a political prisoner, I am going to the United States of America by rowing, because I do not want to continue in the dictatorship. If something happens to me, it is because they sunk me here”.
Coast Guard warns of increased illegal migration
Since October 1, 2021, the start of the current fiscal year, US Coast Guard crews have intercepted 1,779 Cuban raftersa 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.
“We urge families in the United States to encourage their loved ones to migrate legally,” said Lt. Cmdr. Mark Cobb, a security officer for Coast Guard District Seven in the wake of the soaring illegal migration of Cubans in the past. going from the current fiscal year.
“Illegally crossing the unpredictable Florida Straits in crude and improvised boats is very dangerous and can result in loss of life,” he added.
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