A remote national park in the Gulf of Mexico closed on Monday after about 300 migrants landed there over the holiday weekend, officials said.
Dry Tortugas National Park, about 70 miles west of Key West, temporarily closed Monday morning "while law enforcement & medical personnel evaluate, provide care for & coordinate transport to Key West" for the migrants, the park said in a tweet.
“The closure, which is expected to last several days, is necessary for the safety of visitors and staff because of the resources and space needed to attend to the migrants,” park officials said in their statement, adding that concession-operated ferry and seaplane services were also temporarily suspended...more
Hundreds of migrants in Florida in what sheriff calls crisis
...Separately, 160 migrants arrived by boats in other parts of the Florida Keys over the New Year's Day weekend, officials said. On Monday, 30 people in two new groups of migrants were found in the Middle Keys.
In a news release, Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay criticized the federal response to the uptick in migrant arrivals, saying they were stretching local resources. U.S. Border Patrol told the sheriff’s office that the federal response to some of the migrant landings may have to wait a day, the news release said.
“Refugee arrivals require a lot of resources from the Sheriff’s Office as we help our federal law enforcement partners ensure the migrants are in good health and safe,” said Ramsay, whose office's jurisdiction encompasses the Florida Keys. “This shows a lack of a working plan by the federal government to deal with a mass migration issue that was foreseeable."
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