Remote National Park Closes After 300 Migrants Wash Ashore

Tourist near moat wall of Fort Jefferson, Garden Key.

Photo: Getty Images

Dry Tortugas National Park, which is about 70 miles west of Key West, was forced to close down after around 300 migrants washed ashore over the weekend.

First responders arrived to meet the migrants and provided them with food and water while medical personnel checked their health.

"The closure, which is expected to last several days, is necessary for the safety of visitors and staff because of the resources and space needed to attend to the migrants," park officials said in a statement.

Walter Slosar, chief patrol agent for the U.S. Border Patrol's Miami Sector, said that at least 88 of the migrants were from Cuba.

"During the past 24 hours, U.S. Border Patrol agents & LE partners responded to 5 migrant landings throughout the Florida Keys and encountered 88 Cuban migrants," he tweeted on New Year's Eve.

He also shared photos of the boat the migrants were in when they made landfall. In a follow-up tweet the next day, Slosar said that an additional 160 migrants arrived at the park, though he did not specify where they were from.

"The effort now is to try to get them transferred off the island via boat to mainland Key West and the Florida Keys, so they can then be transferred to federal law enforcement agents," Lt. Cmdr. John Beal, a spokesman for the Coast Guard's Seventh District, told the New York Times.

"They're uninhabited, remote islands that don't have the infrastructure to support them," Beal added.


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