More Cuban migrant landings in South Florida
Cuban_migrants_2008 Cuban migrant interdictions in the Florida Straits
are on the rise – but so are Cuban migrant landings in South Florida.
Figures released Friday by the U.S. Border Patrol show that more
Cuban migrants have landed on South Florida beaches since Oct. 1 than
have been interdicted in the Florida Straits during the same period.
Victor Colon, a Border Patrol spokesman in South Florida, said at
least 1,856 Cuban migrants have landed in the area since Oct. 1 – 599
more than the number of Cuban migrants interdicted by the U.S. Coast
Guard in the same period. (The photo above, by Miami Herald staff
photographer Tim Chapman, shows Eralia Perez Avila in the foreground,
one of several Cuban migrants who arrived in March at Bay Harbor, north
of Miami).
The increases are consistent with the overall uptick in the number
of Cubans leaving their homeland since Fidel Castro took ill in July 2006.
A comparison of the two 12-month periods tracked by Homeland
Security agencies since that event shows an increase in the number of
Cuban departures from the island: 16,215 from Oct. 1, 2005 to Sept. 30,
2006 and 19,710 from Oct. 1, 2006 to Sept. 30, 2007.
Meanwhile, from Oct. 1, 2007 to this week at least 9,535 Cubans are
known to have left Cuba. Of those, 8,278 made it to the United States by
boat and plane or by showing up along the Mexican border.
The departure figure of 9,535 consists of Cuban migrants interdicted
in the Florida Straits (1,257), Cuban migrants who have landed in South
Florida beaches (1,856) and Cuban migrants who have shown up without
do***ents along the Mexican border or at international air****ts (6,422).
The figures came from the federal agencies that track Cuban
migrants: U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S.
Border Patrol. The Coast Guard tracks interdictions, Customs and Border
Protection arrivals at the border and at international air****ts and the
Border Patrol landings on South Florida beaches.
-- Alfonso Chardy
April 18, 2008
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/2008/04/more-cuban-migr.html
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