NBC Miami reports today that twelve Cuban migrants on a raft trying to sail to the U.S. were intercepted after Royal Caribbean alerted the U.S. Coast Guard.
Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas cruise ship spotted the Cubans today and radioed the location of the raft to the Coast Guard in Miami.
The NBC affiliate reports that one of the Cuban migrants, a 40-year-old man, had a foot injury and was allowed to go aboard the cruise ship for treatment. The U.S. Coast Guard sent a vessel to the scene and took all 12 of the Cuban rafters.
Under current U.S. immigration laws, the U.S. Coast Guard will take the Cubans back to Cuban where they will likely be imprisoned.
This is the second so-called rescue of Cubans trying to flee Cuban by s cruise ship in the last few days.
On December 21st, a Princess cruise ship “rescued” 20 Cubans, including 9 children. CBS affiliate KPHO Channel 5 in Scottsdale Arizona reports that three families from ages 3 to 80 were picked up by the Princess cruise ship on its way back from the Panama Canal. A Scottsdale man vacationing on the cruise ship captured the event on camera.
The Cuban escapees tried to make it to American land. Cruise passenger Nestor Guzman, himself an immigrant, explained that being rescued doesn’t mean they were freed, because the Cuban refugees never made it to American soil and were found at sea, they were returned to Cuba. “It was good that they didn’t perish in the middle of the ocean,” Guzman said.
“What is going to happen now that they go back to Cuba? All the dream lost . . . To me especially, being from Latin America it was very emotional because I see the desire to go to the U.S. to be free after all these years, I’m sure all their partners were thinking about their children, we want the kids to be in America.”
These two “rescues” this week end a frustrating year for desperate Cuban families who find themselves sent right back to Cuba after risking their lives to come to the U.S. for freedom and better lives for their children.
This story is provided by Cruise Law News.
Video credit: CBS affiliate KPHO Channel 5
