HAVANA — The U.S. Coast Guard said late on Tuesday it had returned 119 Cuban migrants to their island home after picking them up at sea, marking a growing trend of migration by water from the poor, communist-run country to its wealthy northern neighbor.
The migrants, swept up in 12 operations that took place over just three days in the South Florida Straits from the Bahamas to the Florida Keys, were found in boats adrift offshore, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement.
Cuba's state media said Tuesday that it was the largest repatriation in four years. Footage from the docks on Cuba's north shore showed masked health workers clad in white receiving the migrants who had been delivered by U.S. authorities by boat.
A growing group of migrants are trying to shore up their luck in recent months, as Cuba's economy is battered by U.S. sanctions and the COVID-19 epidemic, which has hampered international tourism vital for foreign exchange on the Caribbean island.
The dangerous crossing, complicated by swift ocean currents, relentless sun and wind and shoddy vessels, has claimed the lives of many Cubans over the past decades.
In the first three months of fiscal year 2022 alone, 586 Cubans have attempted to move illegally to the United States, a faster rate than in 2021, when the Coast Guard repatriated 838 Cubans all year.
According to U.S. immigration statistics, the number of Cubans arriving at the U.S. border has hit its highest in a decade between October 2020 and May 2021, as many Cubans turn to overland routes to enter the United States. Cuba says it supports legal, orderly and safe migration, and blames the US for the increase in illegal migration, saying the country's policies, including the Cold War-era embargo, encourages Cubans to risk their lives to leave the island.
U.S. Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said last year that Cubans will not come to the United States, after unprecedented protests in Cuba.