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US deports Cuban migrants from Florida island

WEST LOCK, Fla. –

The U.S. Coast Guard removed more than 300 Cuban migrants from a national park on a remote island off the coast of Florida on Thursday as the U.S. government sought to handle the latest influx of people arriving by plane. boat from this communist island.

Homeland Security officials said the Coast Guard took 337 migrants from Dry Tortugas National Park on the 113-kilometer trip to Key West, where they will be processed. They were among more than 700 migrants, mostly Cubans, who arrived in Florida by boat over New Year’s weekend, prompting officials in Florida to call on the federal government to do more to stop the migrants. to illegal.

On Thursday, the Biden administration signaled a tougher stance on migrants arriving from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, while offering a new path for migrants from those countries. legal entry.

The government said it would immediately begin denying Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans who crossed the US-Mexico border illegally, as it did with Venezuelans. Simultaneously. it will accept 30,000 people per month from those four countries who come legally, have a qualified sponsor, and pass a background check. It is unclear what impact this will have on those who migrate to Florida.

More than 4,400 Cubans and Haitians have traveled to Florida since August amid deepening political and economic crises in both countries. Nearly 8,000 people have stopped at sea and returned to their home countries – about 50 per day compared with 17 per day in fiscal year 2021-22 and just two per day in fiscal year 2020-21. Officials say at least 65 migrants have been killed since August trying to make the dangerous journey in often rickety boats.

Coast Guard Rear Admiral Brendan McPherson said in a statement late Wednesday that despite the increase, “the southeast maritime border is not open.” He asked Cuban and Haitian Americans to “discourage family members in Cuba or Haiti from taking this dangerous and often very dangerous trip.”

Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay, who has jurisdiction over most of the 290-kilometer Florida Keys island chain, said the influx of immigrants is taxing his division of 194 deputy.

Ramsay, a Republican, said Wednesday that he wants the Democratic president and his administration to do more.

“I’m seeing about 10 migrants a day in my small county, which for me, in terms of resources, is very much,” Ramsay said at an event sponsored by US Senator Rick Scott. difficult. “I sympathize with the migrants who come here – I want them to have a happy life. But we have to have a plan.”

Scott, a Republican in Florida, said the US was going through “a border crisis.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican who used state tax dollars to bring Venezuelan asylum seekers from Texas to Massachusetts to protest Biden’s immigration policies, did not say anything. What this week about the Keys situation. His press office did not respond to email requests for comment on Wednesday and Thursday.

Ramon Raul Sanchez with Cuban-American group Movimiento Democracia said the new Biden administration policy is like “trying to use a broken umbrella to keep it out of the rain.” He said the real problem is the Cuban government, whose actions have caused Cubans to flee their country. Now he says he’s even more worried Cubans might risk their lives by going to the US by sea instead of flying to Central America and arriving by land.

That’s how most Cubans try to get into the U.S. During the 2021-2022 fiscal year, 220,000 Cubans were stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border, nearly six times more than the year before.

Although federal officials did not provide details on the nationalities of those who immigrated to Florida since August, the majority of those arriving in Florida came from Cuba, about 160 kilometers from the Keys. The Haitian had a much longer journey — more than 1,130 kilometers. They often hop between the Caribbean islands to the US

Most Cubans will probably eventually be released because the US and Cuba do not have diplomatic relations and the Havana government will not regularly take back migrants arriving in the US, but only those intercepted on the border. sea.

While some people may claim to have been the victim of political persecution in their home country and have been granted refugee status, making them eligible for US citizenship, most likely will. considered as economic immigrants entering the country illegally. They will be required to check in with immigration officials periodically. They will be able to apply for work permits, driver’s licenses and social security numbers – but they will not be eligible to become US citizens.

Since the United States and Haiti have diplomatic relations, most of the Haitians who arrived illegally and were arrested were returned.



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