“This is crazy,” shares Sheriff Rick Ramsey. “This is out of control; we can’t sustain it.”
According to a recent report by US Customs and Border Patrol, the number of migrant arrivals in South Florida this time of year is up five times what they were last year.
This weekend alone, more than 300 migrants have washed up on the Florida Keys’ shores.
The strain is felt not only by the migrants themselves but the local communities they land on.
While Sheriff Ramsey of the Florida Keys has declined interviews this week, reporter Sophia Hernandez spoke to the Monroe County Sheriff last month.
He explained in December that what his community is experiencing is mass migration and why the landings this week show it’s not slowing down.
According to Sheriff Ramsey, since 2021, the Florida Keys has seen a more than 600% increase in migrant landings.
“We are experiencing now an average of three landings a day,” he explains.
Ramsey has been sheriff of Monroe County since 2012. This week he has declined interviews regarding the migrant spike.
But in his interview from a month ago, he said that what his stretch of over 220 miles of land has experienced this last year is what he has coined as a mass migration.
Most people, the Sheriff shares, are coming from Cuba and Haiti.
“We are talking hundreds; we actually had the Coast Guard intercept a Haitian sail freighter yesterday that was inbound for the Keys that had 468 Haitians on board and six animals.”
Sheriff Ramsey says the migrants arriving within this last year are typically at sea anywhere from 3 to 10 days. And when they land, he, along with local fire rescue and police, are met with challenges.
“First and foremost, their health and well-being. We are dealing with medical emergencies, and these are minor to severe to loss of life at sea.”
Sheriff Ramsey says while some migrants sit and wait for assistance, others tend to run off.
“Our 9-1-1 dispatch gets inundated with calls about persons running through people's yards,” he shares. “And we have to respond to most of these calls, not really knowing if it’s really a migrant or if it’s another crime or what’s taking place.”
And the strain on resources doesn’t stop there.
Keys officials have to figure out what to do with all of the vessels left on the shoreline.
“It’s very difficult because you have to have a salvage crew come out, you’ve got to salvage a boat, maybe crane it out, get the crane on land, get the boat out of the water and on a trailer somewhere,” emphasizes Sheriff Ramsey.
He furthers, “It’s got to be environmentally clean because oil and diesel fuels, so it’s got to be cleaned before it’s destroyed. So even a small little chug could cost thousands and thousands of dollars to destroy.”
In his interview from two weeks ago, Sheriff says what’s been the biggest hurdle is manpower to assist.
“A lot is a waiting game, where we have to sit and wait for the government to come up with transportation,” he states. “They don’t have viable transportation for a lot of people to come in, so the transportation has to come in from Miami Dade county. So, by the time you have the landing, you figure how many people, you contact the government, tell them what you got, then they have to work with transportation, get someone on call, to get the bus, then get the bus down here.”
With a sigh, he furthers, “And this takes hours and I have to have people down here with these individuals for hours at a time.”
Since the new year, the number of migrant landings has only continued to rise.
According to Chief Agent Walter Slosar with Miami’s division of Border Patrol, on December 31st, within a 24-hour span, there were 5 migrant landings with 88 Cuban migrants.
By the next day, 160 migrants were encountered after ten landings made it to the Florida Keys’ shore.
According to a press release sent by Sheriff Ramsey this week, as of Tuesday, more than 160 refugees landed in the Central Keys and more than 300 near the Dry Tortugas, ultimately closing the national park.
Sheriff Ramsey, in our previous interview from one month ago, said then that while he has reached out to federal officials for assistance, he has been met with no help.
“We only have a few border patrol agents, and generally, let’s say nighttime, there may only be one agent on,” he explains. “So there may be one agent responsible for 300 migrants that land on the shoreline.”
However, the Southeast Chapter of Homeland Security shared a tweet Tuesday, saying they were aware of the landings and have offered additional personnel.
On Wednesday, they shared that the US Coast Guard removed 90 migrants and that both agencies have been providing food and shelter to stranded migrants until they are transferred to Border Patrol custody in Key West.
According to a tweet by Miami’s CBP, in the past five days, they have reported stopping 26 smuggling events with almost 600 migrants.
Compared to this time last year, they have seen a 400% increase in the number of migrant encounters.
Two weeks ago, the Sheriff shared he has been relying heavily on state agencies, mainly FHP and FWC.
The sheriff said it helped some, but he believes our nation’s government can do more and hopes that they do.
As more migrants land on his shores each day, he predicts the number of migrant landings to triple into the new year.
“It would be easy to say not my job, but we got to suck it up and do what we got to do,” he shares.
