More than 100 Haitians land in Key Largo, just a day after Cuban migrants’ arrival
More than 100 Haitians landed Tuesday in a gated community in Key Largo, the latest boatload of refugees from the Caribbean to hit Florida’s shores.
The boat came from Île de la Tortue, the island off the northwest coast of Haiti, a migrant told the Miami Herald before being whisked away by a federal agent.
Another migrant, 27-year-old Osli Cheriscar, told the Herald that the boat loaded in Môle-Saint-Nicolas, and they left on Friday. Môle-Saint-Nicolas is not far from Île de la Tortue.
“There are about 60 of us here on land,” he said, adding that he left Haiti because of the fear of violence: “The bandits are killing people, preventing us from living.”
The Haitian landing came on the same day as multiple landings by Cuban nationals in the Florida Keys by boat. The Herald confirmed that there were at least three landings of Cubans Tuesday, after groups touched land in Islamorada, Key Largo and in Marathon in the Middle Keys.
They now join more than 500 Cubans who have arrived in the Florida Keys since Friday, an influx that is overwhelming local and federal authorities. The large numbers of Cubans led the National Park Service to announce Sunday that it would be temporarily closing Dry Tortugas National Park in order to assist the migrants.
“Since October 1, 2022, the Miami Sector has experienced over 400% increase in migrant encounters,” Walter N. Slosar, chief patrol agent for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, tweeted Tuesday.
Doug Rudd, 66, was upstairs in his home office on Ocean Cay Drive doing payroll for his North and South Carolina motorcycle dealerships when he saw the rickety sailboat — with its yellow and purple asymmetric sail — stop in shallow water at around 10:30 a.m. about 200 yards from his backyard.
“As soon as it ran aground, people started diving off the ship, and they started swimming and walked to shore,” Rudd said.
When the Haitians reached land, Rudd said, the look on their faces was telling.
“Happy to be here. They were exhilarated they were going to make land,” he said, getting emotional as he recalled the scene.
“It was amazing to see people would risk everything to make the trip, and they were so joyful to make it here,” Rudd added.
By late morning, most of the group was still inside the Ocean Cay Drive gated community. They included men and women, but no children, federal agents said. After having the migrants line up, agents moved them in groups of about 12 at a time into vans operated by different federal agencies, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers were among the first on the scene, and joined other state and federal agents in searching the area for migrants who had left, and escorted them back to a central location.
While many of the Haitians were taken into Border Patrol custody, some who were stopped before reaching land were apprehended and placed on Coast Guard cutters, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Estrada, a spokesman for the service.
The exact number of people in Coast Guard custody was not immediately known, Estrada said.
There have been so many migrants landing in the Florida Keys in recent days that on Tuesday some Haitian migrants had to share a van with the recently arrived Cubans.
“We’ve had a landing just about every day in the past few weeks, if not more than one,” said Sgt. James Hager with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.
Hager was one of the first law enforcement officers on the scene Tuesday when the Haitian vessel arrived — and later left for the Cuban landing in Key Largo.
Although the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and FWC are usually first to respond, sheriff’s office deputies and FWC officers can do little more than wait with migrants until Border Patrol arrives to take them for processing.
In the case of Haitians, it means being bused to the Customs facility in Dania Beach where they are given what are called “credible-fear” interviews to see if they have a fear of persecution if they are returned to their country and should have a chance to apply for asylum in the United States. From there they can be transferred to a detention facility anywhere in the U.S., or even sent back to Haiti if they fail the initial interview.
Cubans, on the other hand, don’t seem to be subjected to the same kind of detention as Haitians. Advocates say while they do not know the fate of the Cubans who arrived over the weekend, Cubans have been released into the public after being taken for processing.
Cuban migrants “have been showing up [at our office] with these documents that say, ‘You have an expedited removal order,’” said Randolph McGrorty, executive director of Catholic Legal Services, which provides assistance to recently arrived migrants.
Expedited removal orders mean arriving Cuban migrants are not being paroled into the United States and they have not undergone a credible-fear interview to see if they have a fear of persecution if they are returned to Cuba.
“Without a parole, Cubans are really stuck and... theoretically, at some point, they could get picked up [by immigration authorities.] It leads to nothing,” he said. “We’re asking for a credible-fear interview for these individuals, because they weren’t given one and they were supposed to have been given one.”
McGrorty said the policy of issuing arriving Cubans expedited removal orders is currently the subject of a federal lawsuit by immigration advocates and lawyers, who are demanding that U.S. immigration officials follow the law. Advocates’ argue that an expedited removal order means that “you’ve come within a certain distance of the border when you were apprehended,” and under the law there are only two paths available to migrants once they have been allowed in.
“You’re either released through a credible-fear finding and paroled, or you’re actually physically removed to your home country,” McGrorty said. “They’re expeditiously ordering [Cubans] removed, which I feel they can’t do without any kind of questioning of fear of persecution.”
READ MORE: As desperate Haitians take to the sea, they turn to Vodou to help guide their journeys
Meanwhile, there are no guarantees for Haitians either. Though some are released to families after passing credible-fear interviews, advocates have long complained that they are also being released with short windows that make them ineligible to apply for asylum and make them vulnerable to being deported back to Haiti.
Though the Biden administration recently renewed Temporary Protected Status for tens of thousands of Haitians, allowing them to legally live and work in the United States, the administration has continued to repatriate Haitians back to their crisis-wracked country.
Both Cuba and Haiti are in the throes of worsening economic and social crises that have sent their nationals fleeing to the U.S. both by sea and by land.
The deteriorating human rights and humanitarian situation in both nations have led to one of the largest exoduses from both nations. In the case of Cubans, U.S. government data reveal that more than 140,000 had fled poverty and oppression on the island between October 2021 and May of last year, surpassing the Mariel exodus of 1980.
Haitians had been fleeing in record numbers not seen in almost 20 years before a fuel crisis in mid-September, created by a gang blockade, ceased all activities inside the country. After the lifting of the blockade, boats once again started to depart. On Monday, officials in the Turks and Caicos Islands confirmed that their marine police unit had intercepted 128 migrants, presumably from Haiti, trying to illegally enter the country. The vessel was stopped two miles from South Dock in Providenciales at around 1 a.m. with 123 men, four women and a minor.
Days earlier, the U.S. Coast Guard reported that it had repatriated 63 Haitians to Haiti, following an interdiction about 29 miles east of Punta de Maisi, Cuba.
“Coast Guard and partner agency crews will continue to patrol the Florida Straits, Windward and Mona passages,” Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Nicholas Fujimoto said at the time. “Anyone attempting to enter the U.S. illegally will be repatriated to their country of origin or departure.”
Since Oct. 1, the U.S. Coast Guard says it has repatriated 1,036 Haitian migrants. Last year, 7,175 Haitians were repatriated between Oct. 1, 2021 and September 30, 2022.
