More than 500 Cuban immigrants have come ashore in the Florida Keys since the weekend, the latest in a large and increasing number who are fleeing the communist island
stretching thin U.S. border agenciesIt is a dangerous 100-mile trip in often rickety boats — unknown thousands having perished over the years — but more Cubans are taking the risk amidA smaller number of Haitians are also fleeing their country's economic and political woes and arriving by boat in Florida.
Dry Tortugas National Park, a group of seven islands 70 miles west of Key West, remained closed to visitors Wednesday as the U.S. evacuated migrants who came ashore there earlier in the week. Normally, about 255 tourists a day arrive by boat and seaplane to tour the islands and Fort Jefferson, which was built 160 years ago. Officials did not know when it would reopen.
Cubans are willing to take the risk because those who make it to U.S. soil almost always get to stay, even if their legal status is murky. They also arrive by land, flying to Nicaragua, then traveling north through Honduras and Guatemala into Mexico. In the 2021-22 fiscal year, 220,000 Cubans were stopped at the U.S.-Mexican border, almost six times as many as the previous year.
Garcia said that can last for the rest of their lives; some Cubans who came in the 1980 Mariel boatlift still are designated “expedited for removal."
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