Coast Guard Repatriate 79 Cuban Migrants

MIAMI - The Coast Guard Cutter Key Biscayne repatriated 79 Cuban migrants to Bahia de Cabañas, Cuba, Saturday who were interdicted in four separate events.

A Customs and Border Protection aircrew located two go-fast vessels traveling in tandem about 40 miles southeast of Miami Wednesday morning. CBP Air and Marine agents patrolling the area intercepted both vessels using disabling fire after the smuggler’s refused to stop, about 12 miles east of Miami. The 58 migrants were transferred to the Coast Guard Cutter Pea Island and four suspected smugglers were transferred to Border Patrol agents in Miami.

The Cutter Kodiak Island interdicted 18 Cuban migrants from a rustic vessel about 45 miles northwest of Havana, Cuba, Wednesday.

A CBP aircraft crew located an unlit go-fast vessel about 80 miles southwest of Key West, Fla., Tuesday, and provided that information to the Coast Guard. The Cutter Key Biscayne was notified and their small boat crew interdicted the vessel with six migrants and two suspected smugglers about 42 miles south of Key West. The two suspects were transferred to Border Patrol agents in Key West.

Two Cuban migrants are pending transfer to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and one is pending disposition.

Once aboard Coast Guard cutters, migrants receive food, water, shelter and necessary medical attention.

The cutters Key Biscayne and Kodiak Island are a 110-foot patrol boats homeported in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The cutter Pea Island is a 110-foot patrol boat homeported in Miami.

Coast Guard Monitoring Haitian Situation

MIAMI - The Coast Guard is closely monitoring recent events in Haiti.

As a deterrent and in the execution of duties related to homeland security and migrant interdiction, the Coast Guard is maintaining a constant presence of surface and air assets in the Windward Pass. The Coast Guard has medium-endurance cutters patrolling the pass as well as Coast Guard helicopters and airplanes.

As always, we are closely monitoring the situation and looking for indications of migrants leaving by boat. So far this year, 490 Haitian migrants have been interdicted at sea and repatriated. The Coast Guard repatriated 1,583 Haitian migrants in 2007.

“Haitain migrants attempting to illegally enter the United States by boat often travel aboard leaking, dangerously overloaded and ill-equipped vessels,” said Rear Adm. David W. Kunkel, commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District and director of Homeland Security Task Force Southeast. “Coast Guard migrant interdiction patrols help save lives by deterring dangerous illegal migrant activity and removing migrants from dangerous environments. Every effort is made to rescue persons embarked in unseaworthy craft or otherwise in peril from the sea, regardless of the nationality or other circumstances of the migrants.”