40 Cubans arrive Monday night to Florida Keys

40 Cubans arrive Monday night to Florida Keys

At least 60 refugees in less than two days come to the Keys
Details on large Sugarloaf Key landing scant; Reports of at least one
small child among group
Landings in line with recent spike in arrivals
BY DAVID GOODHUE
dgoodhue@keysreporter.com

As many as 40 Cuban migrants arrived on Sugarloaf Key Monday night. The
major landing combined with three other migrant arrivals since Sunday
means that in less than two days, at least 60 refugees from Cuba arrived
in the Keys.

U.S. Border Patrol officials did not have many details about the
Sugarloaf Key landing Monday night -- only that a large group came
ashore. Dispatch conversations among first responders heard on scanners
indicate the group includes at least one four-year-old child.

On Sunday, July 17, 13 men arrived in Key Largo on a "single-engine
rustic vessel," said Supervisory U.S. Border Patrol Agent Adam Hoffner.
The men told Border Patrol agents they spent four days at sea.

Monday morning, around 5 a.m., nine Cuban men arrived at the Ocean Reef
Club community in north Key Largo, also in a single-engine rustic craft.
They told Border Patrol agents that their journey from Cuba took six days.

Around 10 a.m. Monday, three men came to shore at the Middle Keys
community of Key Colony Beach.

Since all the migrants made it to dry land, they will likely be allowed
to stay in the U.S. and apply for permanent residency after a year. U.S.
policy toward Cuba considers all arriving migrants refugees. Under the
so-called "wet-foot, dry-foot" change made in 1995 to the Cuban
Adjustment Act, all Cubans leaving their homeland who are stopped at sea
are sent back. All who step foot on U.S. soil can stay.

The number of Cubans fleeing their country has spiked recently following
thawing diplomatic ties last year between the Obama administration and
the Castro regime. Many Cubans fear that with strengthening relations
between the neighboring countries, the logic at the root of wet-foot,
dry-foot no longer applies and the policy may soon end.

Source: 40 Cubans arrive Monday night to Florida Keys | In Cuba Today -
http://www.incubatoday.com/news/article90437807.html