US Border Patrol detains 21 Cuban rafters on uninhabited island in Florida

United States border control forces detained this weekend21 Cuban rafters who landed in Marquesas Keys, a group of uninhabited islands about 50 kilometers west of Key West, in southern Florida.

“Over the weekend, police officersUS Border Patrol with support from HSTF_Southeast [Southeast National Security Task Force] responded to an immigrant landing in the Marquesas Keys and encountered 21 Cuban immigrants,”reported this Monday the chief agent of the Miami sector of the USBP, Samuel Briggs II.

Briggs added that “the migrants were taken into Border Patrol custody and processed for deportation proceedings.”

In the last two years, given the avalanche of immigrants from different countries arriving in the United States,The government has insisted that anyone attempting to or arriving illegally by sea will not be allowed to remain in the country., will be processed in accordance with US laws and policies and returned to your country of origin or departure.

Migrants who arrive by sea and are detained by the Border Patrol after touching US soil are processed to be returned to their country of origin by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) and the Office of Enforcement and Removal (ERO), with the prohibition of legally re-entering that country for five years.

This Sunday,27 Cuban rafters who were adrift on the high seas were rescued by the Carnival Paradise cruise ship, which had left Tampa, Florida, bound for Roatán, in Honduras.

The Cubans were lost and signaled for help to the ship, which turned around to rescue them.

In March,another cruise ship that was also heading to Honduras rescued 14 rafters who were traveling in a sailboat, and took them to the Central American country.

The flow of Cuban immigrants to the United States, whether by sea or land borders, shows no signs of stopping for almost three years, when thelargest migratory exodus in the history of Cuba, due to the acute crisis that the country is going through.

The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported that in the first half of fiscal year 2024 - which began in October -126,517 Cuban immigrants arrived in that country through border points.

According todata of CBP, in the first three months of 2024,The arrival of Cubans through the US borders increased by 60% compared to the same period of the previous year.

Last March, 19,571 Cubans arrived in the United States through irregular routes. Of them, 5,323 did so in South Florida (Miami Sector and Miami Field Office) and another 631 in the Tampa sector.

A total of374 Cuban migrants have been returned to Cuba so far this year from the US and other countries, according to figures from the Ministerio del Interior (MININT).