Two Cubans were arrested on Saturday at Key West International Airport where they arrived aboard a motorized hang glider, police sources confirmed.
Adam Linhartd, spokesman for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, reported that the two Cubans, about whom little information is yet available, were turned over to Border Patrol, which, without giving details, reported on their networks the arrest of the men. migrants and thanked the Monroe Sheriff’s Office for their cooperation.
Arrival was around 10:30 a.m. and apparently the Cubans had no problems during their flight.
The tourist Key West is located a hundred kilometers from Cuba and is like the rest of the Florida Keys, an area where the rudimentary boats land in which hundreds of Cubans leave the island. But arrivals by air, like today, are not common.
In October 2002, a Cuban pilot at the controls of an old Russian-made single-engine Antonov plane landed at the Dade-Collier training and transition airport, located in the middle of the huge Everglades wetland.
In fiscal year 2022 – which runs from October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2022 – a total of 6,182 Cuban migrants were intercepted in the waters of the Florida Strait, a figure well above the 838 detained in the fiscal year. previous.
So far in the current fiscal year, which began October 1, 2022, 5,862 Cubans have been intercepted, a high figure considering that of the entire previous fiscal year.
Cubans are also arriving in record numbers since 2021 at the land border with Mexico, but since January they have had a humanitarian parole program that allows recipients to enter and work in the United States for two years if they have a sponsor who is responsible for it. financially.
The measure, which also applies to Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Haitians, aims to prevent large influxes of immigrants at the border.
So far in 2023, according to Cuban media this week, the number of irregular migrants returned to Cuba stands at 2,798, including 2,008 from the United States.