The Coast Guard reportedly returned 177 Cuban immigrants who were caught at sea off Florida to their country Thursday as 25 Haitians were taken into custody by Border Patrol agents in Virginia Key, a small island just southeast of downtown Miami.
The Cuban immigrants were found off the coast earlier this month, the Associated Press reported, and they were finally repatriated by the Coast Guard. The Haitians, on the other hand, had reportedly traveled by sailboat from Port-de-Paix, Haiti. Some of them needed Good Samaritans with small boats and jet skis to help them ashore, while dozens of others were still aboard the sailboat when they were processed by federal officials at sea, likely meaning they are to be returned to their country.
THOUSANDS OF CUBANS FLOCK TO FLORIDA KEYS IN MASSIVE IMMIGRATION SURGE
Florida has seen an enormous spike in the number of immigrants trying to sail to its shores from Caribbean nations in recent months.
As of last week, federal authorities took into custody more than 12,000 immigrants over the past five months either interdicted at sea or apprehended after making landfall, according to data compiled by the Homeland Security Task Force Southeast, a federal initiative that tracks Coast Guard and Border Patrol encounters.
The increase in immigrant travel to the Sunshine State comes as President Joe Biden takes heat from both Republicans and Democrats over his immigration strategy.
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The number of illegal crossings at the border has ballooned since Biden took office. Roughly 300,000 immigrants crossed the border in fiscal 2020, which jumped to 2.1 million in 2021 and 2.4 million last year.
