Video shows 5 Cuban migrants aboard small boat arriving in Florida Keys

MARATHON, Fla. – Five Cuban migrants made landfall in the Florida Keys Tuesday morning, according to a top U.S. Border Patrol official.

Video from a witness shows the group coming ashore on Sombrero Beach in a homemade boat.

Chief Patrol Agent Walter N. Slosar, who leads the agency’s Miami sector, confirmed that agents took the five Cuban migrants into custody.

Witnesses said the migrants were wet and covered with oil and fuel.

“A Cuban boat came in with a half a dozen people on it,” a witness told Local 10 News. “They were happy. They were wet, all wet, and a little oily. There was oil all over the boat.”

The green homemade boat was seen being moved into mangroves nearby.

Some beachgoers said they found a bag of fruit and homemade bars inside the boat.

Slosar did not confirm if any migrants were hurt.

They are expected to be processed by agents.


About the Authors:

Janine Stanwood joined Local 10 News in February 2004 as an assignment editor. She is now a general assignment reporter. Before moving to South Florida from her Washington home, Janine was the senior legislative correspondent for a United States senator on Capitol Hill.

Ryan Mackey is a Digital Journalist at WPLG. He was born in Long Island, New York, and has lived in Sunrise, Florida since 1994.