Wave of migrants in Florida Keys is a crisis, Monroe County Sheriff says
KEY WEST - A surprise at sea for the passengers of a Carnival Cruise ship. While traveling to Miami, travelers spotted a small raft drifting in the water.
"As the boat got closer and we were paddling in, we started seeing through our phones, zooming in that there was people on the boat," said Jose Marquez, a passenger onboard the cruise ship.
Marquez recalls the emotional moment the five Cuban refugees aboard that raft were rescued.
"If you see five gentlemen risking their lives, in the middle of nowhere — because it was the middle of nowhere— on a raft made out of God knows what with a weed water engine, you have to question yourself, what is actually happening in Cuba that people would risk their lives to come over to the United States?" said Marquez.
Those men are just five of hundreds of Cuban migrants who showed up to the U.S. through South Florida this past weekend.
According to Dry Tortugas National Park, 500 hundred migrants have arrived at the park over the last few days, forcing the park to temporarily close.
U.S. Border Patrol, tweeting pictures of rafts found through the Florida Keys that dozens of Cuban migrants used to sail over.
"We have been having massive exodus from Cuba. Actually, the largest in the history of the revolution," said Ramon Saul Sanchez, a community activist for Democracy Movement, an organization that works with Cuban migrants.
Sanchez says these migrants are fleeing a dictatorship with hopes of creating a better life and says the U.S. government needs to find a different approach to handle this crisis.
"We all also have to work to tell the Cubans on the island that it's very risky to come out to the ocean like that. That after they have risked everything, they may be picked up by the United States Coast Guard and sent back to Cuba or they may lose their lives in the alternatives," said Sanchez.
The Monroe County Sheriff's Office, releasing this statement that reads in part: "Refugee arrivals require a lot of resources from the Sheriff's Office as we help our federal law enforcement partners ensure the migrants are in good health and safe...this shows a lack of a working plan by the federal government to deal with a mass migration issue that was foreseeable,"
Carnival Cruise says they coordinated to meet with the United States Coast Guard after the rescue. Representatives for Dry Tortugas say the park will be closed for several days because of the resources and space needed to attend to the migrants.