(Tribune News Service) — As the near-constant migrant arrivals in the Florida Keys continues unabated this week, a large group of people from Cuba came ashore at the U.S. Navy’s air base in Key West late Thursday night, officials said.

The group landed around 10 p.m. on the beach at the base’s Truman Annex, located near the Southernmost Point Buoy landmark, which is a popular photo spot for tourists visiting Key West. Navy security personnel responded to the scene and called the Border Patrol, said Danette Baso Silvers, public affairs officer at Naval Air Station Key West.

Adam Hoffner, division chief for U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Miami operations, said there were 14 men, nine women and three “accompanied children” in the group.

The landing happened amid a mass migration to the Keys — mostly from Cuba, but with one group of 130 Haitians on an overloaded sailboat — that began right before the new year. One group of about 500 that landed at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas National Park last weekend was so large federal officials closed the park to the public.

The Coast Guard removed everyone from that landing Thursday, and they were taken by bus to be processed by Border Patrol agents on the mainland.

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