MIAMI - The U.S. Coast Guard is seeing more Haitian migrants trying to reach the Florida coast by boat. And many migrants do not survive the dangerous journey.
On Monday, I got to go up in the air on a routine search-and-rescue flight out of Coast Guard Air Station Miami. The flight crew surveyed roughly 700 miles of open waters looking for people trying to illegally enter the United States. "Coast Guard's main mission is search-and-rescue so we get on out here, that's our main concern," Lt.
Katrina Prout said, the aircraft's pilot, said. "Even though these people are from a different country, we're all still people at the end of the day and we're concerned about their safety of life at sea."Just about 30 minutes into this flight, the crew found something while over Bahamian waters — a boat believed to be from Haiti.
The aircraft circled overhead for several hours while crews on boats made contact and attempted a rescue. The Haitian boat was located about 75 miles southeast of Key Largo.