U.S. immigration authorities apprehended nearly 60 migrants in the southeastern approaches to the country in January 2025. Above, Coast Guard personnel help Cuban migrants in the Florida Straits. U.S. COAST GUARD
U.S. homeland defense authorities retrieved 71 migrants involved in five separate smuggling operations in the Bahamas and off the coast of Florida in early January 2025. The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) intercepted 34 of the migrants at sea and retrieved the other 37 from two uninhabited Bahamian islands where they had become stranded.
The first interdiction occurred on January 3, 2025, at Cay Sal, one of the larger islands in the Cay Sal Bank, a remote and uninhabited cluster of small islets and cays that lie nearer to Cuba than to the rest of the Bahamas. The USCG Cutter William Flores intercepted a group of 15 Cuban migrants who were attempting to disembark a motor vessel onto the island, according to a release from the Bahamas Department of Immigration. The group consisted of nine men, three women and three children and were transferred to Bahamian custody.
That same day, a more diverse group of migrants being trafficked by smugglers was apprehended off the coast of Florida. Near Tampa Bay, a 25-foot cabin cruiser, piloted by two Bahamian smugglers, was interdicted by a USCG cutter. On board were 13 migrants: seven from China, two from Romania and one each from Bermuda, Ecuador, Guiana and Jamaica. The smugglers were detained by U.S. Homeland Security authorities while the migrants were turned over to Bahamian immigration authorities, the release stated.
Also on January 3, farther south near Biscayne Bay, U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel stopped a vessel also piloted by a Bahamian smuggler with four Chinese and two Dominican migrants aboard. Again, the migrants were transferred to Bahamian custody while the smuggler remained in U.S. custody.
The following week, a U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary aircrew from Air Station Miami notified Coast Guard Sector Key West on January 9, 2025, of a group of people waving their arms in distress on Cay Sal Bank. The next day, an HC-144 Ocean Sentry plane spotted a second group of 22 migrants stranded on another uninhabited Bahamian island, Anguilla Cay. The aircrew dropped food, water and a radio to establish communications, according to a Coast Guard news release. After the Bahamian government requested U.S. assistance in aiding the migrants, the USCG Cutter Northland picked them up and transferred them to the USCG Cutter William Flores, which delivered the 37 Cuban migrants to Bahamian immigration authorities on January 12, the release stated.
The Coast Guard frequently collaborates and coordinates with Bahamian authorities on both search and rescue operations and migrant interdictions. It maintains a constant presence in land, sea and air domains in the Caribbean corridor in support of Operation Vigilant Sentry. The combined, multilayered approach of this operation is designed to protect the safety of life at sea while preventing unlawful maritime entry to the United States and its territories, according to the release. “The Coast Guard and our Task Force partners diligently patrol the Florida Straits, Windward Passage and the Mona Passage to save lives by rescuing migrants from unsafe environments, deterring dangerous attempts to enter the U.S. illegally by sea and preventing human smuggling activity,” said Lt. Connor Pascale, Coast Guard liaison officer to the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands. “These irregular, unlawful voyages in unseaworthy vessels are extremely dangerous and put migrants’ lives at risk.”