MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A man who was fishing spotted two dozen Cuban migrants who were stranded on a sand bar near Elliott Key on Saturday. One of them was a woman who told authorities she was pregnant.
The U.S. Coast Guard, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol answered the call for help from the Black Point Marina in Homestead. The group of migrants included 17 men and 7 women. None of them requested medical attention.
Immigration authorities were processing them in Dania Beach. If the Cuban migrants don't have a criminal record, they will be released under the Cuban Adjustment Act, the law that allows them to remain legally in the U.S.
The Church World Services in Doral was expecting to receive the group. They are part of a now two-year-old surge of migrants who are running away from the island's financial hardships.
More are willing to risk their lives, because they fear that the immigration policy enacted in the late 1960s will change with the renewed U.S.-Cuba relations.