Hundreds of Cuban migrants head to Key West after landing on Keys island, Coast Guard says

Hundreds of Cuban migrants who were stranded on remote islands off a Florida Keys national park for almost a week were shipped to Key West on Thursday.

The Coast Guard said Thursday morning that 337 migrants being held at Dry Tortugas National Park were onboard the USCG Cutter Maple, a 225-foot buoy tender, to be taken to the Coast Guard station in Key West. From there, the US. Coast Guard noted they will be transported to U.S. Border Patrol stations for processing.

Denise and Ray DePasquale from Pasadena, Maryland, followed the ship from land as it approached Sector Key West. They took a photo showing hundreds of people gathered underneath tents set up on the deck of the cutter.

“They all waved as the ship went by,” Denise DePasquale said.

Both said they took interest in the situation because they are moved by the migrants’ plight.

“They are refugees,” Ray said. “They’re risking their lives to come here and get away from their government.”

Around 3:30 p.m. Thursday, seven charter buses filled with the migrants left the Key West Coast Guard station, ringed by a police escort, and started the trek from the Keys to the mainland. The buses were headed to U.S. Border Patrol processing centers in South Florida, most likely in Dania Beach and West Palm Beach, according to sources.

Earlier this week, another 90 migrants were taken from the Dry Tortugas park and transferred to Key West.

Between the two groups, 427 Cuban migrants have landed at Dry Tortugas National Park since the New Year’s holiday weekend, the Coast Guard said.

As the people from the Tortugas landings were being taken to Key West, migrant landings continued up and down the Keys Thursday. One, at Harry Harris Park, an oceanside facility in the Upper Keys, boat ramps and ball fields, exemplified how overwhelmed state, local and federal agents have become in the Keys dealing with the latest migrant influx.

The 18 men and women arrived around dawn, but Border Patrol agents couldn’t get to them until after 6 p.m. to place the group on a bus to be processed on the mainland.

There were some plainclothes federal agents at the scene who said they were sent to the Keys from out of state on temporary assignment to help overworked agents permanently assigned in the island chain.

READ MORE: U.S. will turn away Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans who cross border illegally

Since Christmas, migrant landings in the Keys have increased significantly, with as many as five to 10 landings a day. Most of the migrants are coming from Cuba, where an economic crisis and increased repression have led to the jump in migrant arrivals.

Since Oct. 1, more than 4,000 Cubans have been stopped at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard, a number that is on par to outpace the number that arrived during the 2020-21 fiscal year. Nearly 225,000 Cubans arrived in the United States in 2022, an exodus that surpasses the migrant waves during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. At that time, 125,000 Cuban migrants arrived in Florida.

In addition, some migrants are coming from Haiti. On Tuesday, 130 Haitian migrants arrived in Key Largo on an overloaded sailboat. Increased gang violence and political instability have been fueling the Haitians’ departure.

READ MORE: More than 100 Haitians land in Key Largo, just a day after Cuban migrants’ arrival

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.