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Anonymous ID: da750a April 4, 2022, 6:59 p.m. No.16013591   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>3761 >>3893

Migrants from Russia are smuggled into Key West by boat, officials say

 

FORT LAUDERDALE — Undocumented migrants from Russia and other former Soviet countries were smuggled Sunday into Key West, Fla., authorities said, raising concerns that the war in Ukraine is spurring refugees and others to seek dangerous new routes to the United States.

 

Alyson Crean, a spokeswoman for the Key West Police Department, said a boat chartered from Cuba docked at the south end of Duval Street, in the heart of the city’s tourist district, around 4 p.m. Sunday.

 

Crean said Key West police were called after about 15 of the migrants, whom she identified as being from Russia or other countries, walked into Southernmost Beach Cafe. Police alerted the Department of Homeland Security and its sub-agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, about the landfall.

 

“They docked on a pier there and disembarked and went into the cafe,” said Crean, who referred additional questions to federal investigators.

 

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Monday afternoon that 15 migrants from Russia and a pair of former Soviet republics were smuggled into the Keys on a sport-fishing vessel and taken into U.S. Border Patrol custody. Nine are from Russia, four are from Kazakhstan and two are from Kyrgyzstan, officials said, and all are being processed for deportation.

 

DHS said the incident was an example of "maritime smuggling.”

 

“Smugglers have no regard for the lives of migrants, and far too many lives are lost at sea as individuals take the dangerous journey in makeshift boats, rafts, and other vessels ill-equipped to handle the rough waters," DHS spokesman Eduardo Maia Silva said in a statement.

 

Anyone "attempting to enter the United States by sea, without a lawful basis to enter, will be subject to removal,” he said.

 

Officials in Monroe County, which includes Key West and the rest of the Florida Keys, said witnesses told them that the 15 migrants who showed up at the cafe may have been part of a larger group of about 40 individuals who traveled in the boat from Cuba. DHS did not respond to questions about whether officials are searching for any other passengers or crew, and what happened to the boat.

 

The other occupants, most believed to have been from Russia, departed before CBP agents arrived at the scene, county leaders said. Although Monroe County officials are accustomed to Cuban migrants landing in the Florida Keys, they said it was the first time they’ve encountered migrants from Russia or Eastern Europe crossing the Straits of Florida into the United States.

 

“This is something different and new,” said Monroe County Mayor David Rice, adding that officials initially treated the landing as a “national security event.”

 

moar at:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/migrants-from-russia-are-smuggled-into-key-west-by-boat-officials-say/ar-AAVR7wE