Cubans Land on Key West

The Miami Herald reported January 26^th that fifteen Cuban migrants had landed in the yard of a U.S. Naval officer in the popular Florida destination of Key West. As the Herald says, "The U.S. Navy's new top commander in Key West got up one morning this week to a front-door taste of life in South Florida: Calmly sitting in his yard near a hedge were 15 Cuban migrants, fresh off a crossing of the Florida Straits in a rickety homemade boat."

According to the report, another officer, who was out for an early morning jog, first spotted the migrants around 5:30 A.M. He then knocked on the front door of the house where the Cubans were, home of Navy Captain James R. Brown of the Key West Naval Air Station.

The Herald reported Brown as saying, "I grabbed my phone and shouted to my wife, Lorie, that we had extra guests in our front yard....What a sight to behold. Fifteen people were sitting calmly, sipping the little water they had left." According to the report, four of the Cubans had left to find help, eventually making their way back to the group and sitting under a streetlight so they could be found.

The Herald says that "Under the United States government's 'wet-foot/dry-foot' policy, the Cubans-12 men, five women and two children-are almost certain to be allowed to stay because they reached U.S. soil."

According to the report, the place where the Cubans came ashore "...is only about a mile from the Coast Guard base in Key West and even closer to a Virginia-based Coast Guard cutter that was docked at Truman Annex to unload $57 million of cocaine seized from a Honduras fishing vessel."

Coast Guard spokesman Chris O'Neil is quoted as saying that there is a "robust and aggressive" presence in the Florida Straits, despite the dry-docking of eight patrol boats for repair of structural problems. "We're out there, but it's a big ocean and you can't throw a wall around the maritime border and seal it off and say 'We have 100 percent protection,'" the Herald quoted O'Neil as saying. "It's not achievable."

Coast Guard Captain Scott Buschman, commander of the Key West area, is quoted as saying he will soon put in place a new plan that will allow patrol boats to work about double the hours they do now by rotating crews and changing the maintenance plan.

Information for this article was obtained from "Cuban Migrants Land on Key West Naval Property," by Cammy Clark, published January 26, 2007 in the Miami Herald.