MIAMI (AP) — Coast Guard officials say 45 Cuban migrants picked up in the waters off the Florida Keys have been returned to their Caribbean homeland.
A Coast Guard crew intercepted an “aluminum rustic vessel” carrying 25 migrants Saturday in the waters southwest of Key West. In a separate interdiction later Saturday, the crew found another 20 migrants aboard an unseaworthy vessel south of the Dry Tortugas.
All the migrants were returned Wednesday to Bahia de Cabanas, Cuba. They received food, water and medical care while aboard Coast Guard vessels.
Coast Guard officials say that in the 2014 fiscal year that began Oct. 1, roughly 5,100 Haitians, 3,400 Cubans and 560 Dominicans have been intercepted while trying to illegally migrate to U.S. shores by sea.
