An overloaded sailboat carrying nearly 200 Haitian migrants left Friday from the Northwest of Haiti ran aground Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023 around 11:00 a.m. about 800 meters off Key Largo in Florida.

Authorities said many migrants jumped into the shallow water to reach the coast. The migrants soon came ashore and gathered in a residential area, and the US Coast Guard and Border Patrol were there to greet them.

Firefighters from Monroe County, the US Border Patrol and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission were on the scene to help the migrants.

The US Border Patrol confirmed on Twitter the arrival of "a large number of migrants" in Key Largo, about 110 km south of Miami, and called the current situation a "massive migration crisis".

In a statement, Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay criticized the federal response to rising migrant arrivals, saying it was draining local resources. The U.S. Border Patrol told the sheriff's office that the federal response to some of the arriving migrants may have to wait a day [...] This shows the absence of a federal government plan to deal with a mass migration problem that was predictable.

SL/ iciHaiti