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KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) – A U.S. nationwide park comprising a cluster of islands within the Florida Keys was closed Monday after 300 migrants landed there over the weekend. Individually, 160 migrants arrived by boat to different components of the archipelago, officers mentioned.
Dry Tortugas Nationwide Park, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) west of Key West, was closed so legislation enforcement and medical personnel might consider the migrants earlier than transporting them to Key West, the park mentioned in a tweet.
“The closure, which can final a number of days, is critical for the security of tourists and employees as a result of sources and area required to look after the migrants,” park officers mentioned in an announcement.
The nationwide park is positioned on the southern tip of the continental United States and attracts divers and snorkelers for its coral reefs, nesting sea turtles, tropical fish, and shipwrecks.
“As elsewhere within the Florida Keys, the park has not too long ago skilled a rise within the variety of folks arriving by boat from Cuba and touchdown on the islands of Dry Tortugas Nationwide Park,” the Nationwide Park Service mentioned in an announcement.
Over the weekend, one other 160 migrants landed in components of the Center and Higher Keys, based on the Monroe County Sheriff’s Workplace, whose jurisdiction consists of the Florida Keys.
US Customs and Border Safety tweeted that at the least 88 of the migrants have been from Cuba. U.S. Border Patrol and Coast Guard crews patrolling South Florida and the Keys are experiencing the most important improve in boat migration in latest months, with a whole lot of migrants arriving in latest months, principally from Cuba and Haiti.
In a information launch, Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsey criticized the federal response to the surge in migrant arrivals, saying they’re stretching native sources. The sheriff’s workplace was advised by the U.S. Border Patrol {that a} federal response to some migrant landings might take as much as a day, based on a information launch.
“This reveals the federal authorities’s lack of an motion plan to take care of mass migration that was predictable,” Ramsay mentioned.
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