Coast Guard stops overloaded Haitian migrant boat off Bahamas
The U.S. Coast Guard stopped an overloaded sailboat with just about 180 folks crammed on its deck off the Bahamas Sunday evening.
The 179 persons ended up very first sighted by a Coastline Guard air crew around 11 p.m. sailing about 30 miles off Andros Island, the agency stated.
Two cutters, the Confidence and the Harriet Lane, stopped the vessel and took the persons on board. The Coastline Guard stated they have been transferred to the custody of the Royal Bahamian Protection Power on Tuesday.
The federal federal government tracks maritime migration by the fiscal 12 months, beginning and ending Oct. 1. If the figures of Haitian migrants stopped at sea proceed on their present-day trajectory, fiscal year 2022 will surpass last fiscal 12 months, which saw the most people interdicted by the Coast Guard since FY 2019.
Given that Oct, the Coast Guard stopped 993 Haitian migrants headed to Florida, in comparison to 1,527 in all of fiscal yr 2021. In fiscal calendar year 2020, the Coastline Guard only encountered 418 folks from Haiti at sea.
The Coast Guard is also seeing a surge in Cuban migrants on the Florida Straits, the most due to the fact fiscal year 2017. Gurus level to deteriorating financial and political disorders inside both of those nations.
Sunday’s end also proceeds a trend of Haitians boarding overloaded sailboats as a migration signifies. In January, a group of 176 people today ended up stopped around the exclusive gated north Critical Largo group of Ocean Reef.
On Christmas Eve, the Border Patrol took 52 people from Haiti into custody just after their sailboat arrived off a distant two-lane freeway in close proximity to Ocean Reef called Card Seem Highway. In November, 63 Haitian migrants also arrived on a sailboat in practically the similar spot off Card Seem Street.
The Coast Guard Tuesday issued a statement urging migrants from both Cuba and Haiti not to risk their lives attempting to migrate to the States on these kinds of journeys. Not only is it extremely dangerous, migrants are most likely to be returned to their homelands if caught.
“The probability of a prosperous migration voyage is reduced, and when these voyages are stopped, persons should expect to be returned to their region of origin,” Lt. Vladimir Jimenez, law enforcement duty officer with the Seventh Coastline Guard District command heart, mentioned.
This story was at first released March 1, 2022 4:56 PM.
David Goodhue addresses the Florida Keys and South Florida for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald. Right before becoming a member of the Herald, he covered Congress, the Environmental Security Company and the Department of Electricity in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of the College of Delaware.
