Twelve Cubans arrived in Lower Matecumbe Key early Tuesday morning, marking the first reported Cuban migrant landing in the Keys this year.
According to US. Border Patrol agents, the 10 men and two women arrived around 1 a.m.
All 12 people were “in good health and accounted for,” according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.
The new arrivals reportedly left Punta Alegre, a seaside town on the northern coast of Cuba about seven days ago.
There hasn’t been a reported maritime landing of Cuban nationals in the Florida Keys since Dec. 22, when seven people arrived in Key West, Hoffner said. Before that, the last landing was in October.
During Obama’s last year in office, Cubans taking notice of the softening diplomatic ties between Washington and the Castro regime fled en masse to all U.S. points of entry anticipating the end of wet-foot, dry-foot -- a policy which categorizes almost all Cubans arriving on U.S. shores from the communist nation as refugees