KEY LARGO, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ state response to the latest influx of Cuban, and sometimes Haitian, migrant landings in the Florida Keys appears to have begun.
Six Florida Highway Patrol troopers responded to a single landing on the ocean side of Key Largo around 7 a.m. Sunday morning.
To put that in perspective, that’s about the number of FHP troopers that are regularly assigned to patrol all of the more than 120 miles of road in the Keys on a daily basis.
Law enforcement personnel on Sunday said the state response is growing following the governor’s declaration Friday of an emergency, activating the Florida National Guard and other state agencies to help patrol the waters surrounding the archipelago.
One law enforcement source told the Miami Herald that Florida Highway Patrol troopers from various areas of the mainland are heading to the Keys in shifts — about five at a time, for two or three days at a time — as part of DeSantis’ plan to deal with the situation. Another said more officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission — a state agency that enforces fisheries laws, but is now temporarily tasked with detecting maritime migrant arrivals — are expected to arrive in the Keys this week as part of the governor’s order.
The governor’s office was not immediately available for comment.
Hundreds, if not more than a thousand, Cubans have landed in the Keys since Christmas. On Tuesday, 130 people from Haiti arrived off Key Largo in an overloaded migrant sailboat.
The Key Largo landing was one of at least two Sunday after a respite from migrant arrivals on Saturday. A man with another group that landed in the Middle Keys city of Marathon Sunday said he was with about 28 other people.
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