U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Tuesday that it had rounded up 123 Haitian migrants that came ashore in the Florida Keys on Monday morning.
According to the agency, CBP was notified by a citizen that a boat with about 100 people on board was close to running aground near a residential area in Summerland Key, Florida, around 11:30 a.m. Monday.
Once the boat ran aground, the passengers safely swam to shore where they were met by responding law enforcement, the agency said.
Officers provided first aid to a small number of the migrants suffering from dehydration and were told by the group that they departed La Tortuga Island in Haiti, March 9, in what the agency called a "marine smuggling event."
The group was then transported to the Marathon and Dania Beach Border Patrol Stations for processing and will be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, the agency said.
Walter N. Slosar, chief patrol agent, U.S. Border Patrol, Miami Sector, praised state, and local law enforcement for their cooperation during the operation.
"Today was another coordinated and timely response with our federal, state, and local partners," he said in the agency's press release. "While on scene, I witnessed the great work being done to ensure the safety of these migrants whose lives were put at risk by smugglers. The migrants will be detained and processed for removal proceedings."
The agency continues to investigate the incident.
According to CBP, the Miami Sector was established in 1940 and is responsible for 187,000 square miles including 1,776 miles of coastal border, of which 1,203 miles are in Florida.
The sector monitors both the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico coasts and includes the states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
The United States Coast Guard said in a post on Twitter, March 12, that it stopped an overloaded Haitian sail freighter with 127 people on board Saturday about 41 miles off the abandoned island of Anguilla Cay in the Bahamas between Cuba and the Florida Keys.
In Feb. 2021, the Coast Guard rescued two men and a woman on that island after being stranded there for more than a month, according to a report from the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Feb. 10, 2021.
According to the article, the three survived on the island by drinking from coconuts and eating shellfish and rats.
It was not clear in the story if they were migrants or people who were shipwrecked.
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