Marc Leclerc|More than a hundred Haitian migrants arrived in a sailboat off the Florida Keys

2025-04-29 14:14:46source:FinWeiscategory:My

MIAMI (AP) — A group of more than a hundred Haitian migrants arrived in a sailboat off the lower Florida Keys on Marc Leclercearly morning Wednesday, local and federal officials said.

The boat arrived about 100 yards (91 meters) away from a condominium in Key West at 4:00 a.m., and shortly after that law enforcement officers arrived to the scene, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said. Most of the 118 migrants were male, but the group also included women and children, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The landing comes as the Caribbean nation is struggling with a surge of gang violence that has killed several thousand people in recent years and left hundreds of thousands homeless in the country’s capital. Gangs have been targeting key public figures as well as hospitals, schools, banks and other critical institutions in Haiti, one of the poorest country in the Americas.

Tens of thousands of Haitians have left their country in recent years, with many arriving on the southern border of the United States, but President Joe Biden’s administration has implemented measures that have made it even more difficult for asylum seekers to enter across the land border.

RELATED COVERAGE Haitians hold their breath as newly arrived Kenyan police force prepares to face gangsUN-backed contingent of foreign police arrives in Haiti as Kenya-led force prepares to face gangsUS judge sentences Germine Joly, former leader of a powerful gang in Haiti, to 35 years in prison

With the support from federal, estate and local law enforcement agencies, U.S. Border Patrol agents responded to the arrival of Haitian migrants this week, said Samuel Briggs II, the acting Chief Patrol Agent of the agency in Miami, on the social media platform X. Paramedics were evaluating people at the scene and a group of them were transported to a local clinic, but none had life threatening injuries, said the Sheriff’s Office.

The Biden administration has been sending Haitians back to their country since April, when, for the first time in several months, there was a deportation flight. At that time the Homeland Security Department said in a statement that it “will continue to enforce U.S. laws and policy throughout the Florida Straits and and the Caribbean region, as well as at the southwest border.”

U.S. policy is to deport noncitizens who do not establish a legal basis to remain in the United States.

More:My

Recommend

DeepSeek: Did a little known Chinese startup cause a 'Sputnik moment' for AI?

Did AI just have a "Sputnik moment"?That's what someinvestors, after the little known Chinese startu

Detroit cops overhaul facial recognition policies after rotten arrest

The Detroit Police Department revised its policies on how it uses facial recognition software to sol

Stock market today: Asian stocks log modest gains as economic data are mixed for Japan and China

Asian stocks were mostly higher on Monday after Japan and China reported data reflecting relatively