FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A total of 356 Haitian migrants made their way to the Florida Keys over the weekend before being taken into custody.
Family members of these migrants say they’ve had no contact with them since they got here over the weekend and many are hoping that the United States will change its policies, so their loved ones will be able to stay.
“He was working in port-de-paix and things just start getting horrible. People cannot properly take care of their kids or their families there,” Christine Noel said whose brother was one of the Haitian immigrants that came ashore this past weekend.
Noel says her brother has four kids and has lived in Haiti his whole life.
She says he deals with frequent death threats and they’ve been trying to get him to the U.S. but she had no idea he was going to get onto that boat.
“This must have been one of those okay, here’s an opportunity take it,” she said.
Noel was so concerned for her brother’s safety, she didn’t reveal her brother’s name or show any pictures of him.
When the boat got stuck, more than 150 of the migrants jumped off and tried swimming ashore and that’s how Noel says she knew her brother was alive, by spotting him in a video showing some of the migrants.
Noel hopes instead of sending them back to the dangers they’re fleeing in Haiti, the government will reconsider, and let them stay.
“Your biggest question should be ‘how big is this monster that all of these men cannot combat, that they’d rather run for it,” said Noel.
The nearly 200 migrants who did not try to swim ashore were moved to a U.S. Coast Guard cutter for safety and it is likely all 350 plus, will be sent back to Haiti.