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Wave of 500 migrants invades the Florida Keys: Dry Tortugas National Park is CLOSED as shiploads arrive from Cuba due to rising inflation and food shortages
- Hundreds of immigrants from Cuba fled to the Florida Keys by boat over the weekend
- Cuba faces high inflation, economic instability and food shortages
- Dry Tortugas National Park officials close the park to serve migrants
- South Florida has experienced an escalation of migrants in the last decade
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At least 500 migrants have arrived in small boats along the Florida Keys in recent days in what the local sheriff’s office described Monday as a “crisis.”
Economic turmoil, food shortages and runaway inflation in Cuba and other parts of the Caribbean are fueling the latest wave of migration.
Over the weekend, 300 migrants arrived at the sparsely populated Dry Tortugas National Park about 70 miles west of Key West.
Separately, 160 migrants arrived by boat in other parts of the Florida Keys over New Year’s Day weekend, authorities said.
On Monday, 30 people in two new groups of migrants were found in the Middle Keys.
The park was closed so that police and medical personnel could evaluate the group before moving them to Key West, the park tweeted.
About 300 immigrants from Cuba arrived in the Florida Keys over the weekend. An empty raft was seen stranded on Sombrero Beach
Cuba faces high inflation, economic instability and food shortages
In a news release, Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay criticized the federal response to the surge in immigrant arrivals, saying they were stretching local resources.
The US Border Patrol told the sheriff’s office that the federal response to some of the arriving immigrants may have to wait a day, according to the news release.
“The arrival of refugees requires a lot of resources from the Sheriff’s Office as we help our federal law enforcement partners to ensure that migrants are in good health and safety,” said Ramsay, whose jurisdiction for the office covers the Florida Keys.
“This shows the lack of a work plan on the part of the federal government to deal with a massive migration problem that was foreseeable.”
Dry Tortugas National Park officials said they expected it to be closed for several days due to the space and resources needed to care for the migrants.
The national park is located at the southern tip of the continental US and attracts snorkelers and snorkelers for its coral reefs, nesting sea turtles, tropical fish, and shipwrecks.
“As with other parts of the Florida Keys, the park has recently seen an increase in people arriving by boat from Cuba and landing on the islands of Dry Tortugas National Park,” the National Park Service said in a statement from press.
South Florida has experienced an escalation of migrants in the last decade
Jorge Yunier Cepa Sánchez showed a compass that he used to help guide migrants to Florida
Dry Tortugas National Park officials close the park to serve migrants
A group of Cuban immigrants were seen standing in the sun while standing in the middle of Duck Key, Florida.
Some 6,180 Cubans were intercepted at sea by the US Coast Guard in the 2022 fiscal year that ended in September. Another group of migrants was seen hanging out on Duck Key on Monday.
In addition to landing in the national park over the weekend, another 160 migrants arrived in the Middle and Upper Keys. At least 88 of the migrants are from Cuba, the US Customs and Border Protection said in a tweet.
US Border Patrol and Coast Guard crews patrolling South Florida and the Keys have been experiencing the biggest spike in migration by boat in nearly a decade, with hundreds of interceptions in recent months, in mostly people from Cuba and Haiti.
Some 6,180 Cubans were intercepted at sea by the US Coast Guard in fiscal year 2022, according to Reuters. The fiscal year ended in September, but in mid-December 3,000 more migrants arrived.
Meanwhile, 220,000 Cubans were captured after fleeing to the US-Mexico border last year.