A sailboat carrying a group of more than 100 migrants from Haiti is shown after they arrived off Key West, Fla., on June, 26, 2024. (Monroe County Sheriff's Office)
MIAMI (Tribune News Service) — A day after almost 120 people from Haiti arrived in Key West on a migrant sailboat, a small group of Haitians landed on the shores of a gated community about 120 miles away at the opposite end of the Florida Keys, according to local police and federal agents.
Thursday night, around 8:15 p.m., the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office responded to calls of three men walking within the Ocean Reef Club, an exclusive neighborhood and resort located at the northern portion of Key Largo, the agency confirmed to the Miami Herald.
The men told deputies they arrived on a boat from Haiti, said Adam Linhardt, a sheriff’s office spokesman.
As is policy, once the situation is confirmed to be a migrant landing, the sheriff’s office waits for U.S. Border Patrol agents to arrive, then turns the case over to them.
Although three men were found, there may have been more people in the group.
Nestor Yglesias, spokesman for U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, said agents believe the migrants were smuggled by boat. Agents are studying security camera footage from Ocean Reef to see if they can determine the total number of people who arrived.
Early morning the day before — around 3:40 a.m. — an overloaded sailboat with 117 people from Haiti arrived in the shallow waters off Higgs Beach in Key West.
The people on board told authorities they left Haiti seven days before arriving in Key West. It was the largest arrival of Haitian migrants to the Keys since February 2023.
Border Patrol agents took the arrivals from the sailboat to a migrant processing station in Dania Beach, said Adam Hoffner, assistant chief patrol agent for the Border Patrol’s Miami sector.
©2024 Miami Herald.
Visit miamiherald.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
