Published on Wednesday, May 13, 2009
SAN JUAN , Puerto Rico -- The crew of Coast Guard Cutter Cushing
repatriated eight Dominicans and one Cuban to La Romana, Dominican
Republic Tuesday morning, while four other Dominicans were detained for
prosecution following an at-sea interdiction by Caribbean Border
Interagency law enforcement authorities Sunday.
The crew of a US Customs and Border Protection Dash-8 aircraft located a
migrant vessel Sunday night while patrolling Mona Passage waters. The
migrants, 11 men and two women, were traveling illegally to Puerto Rico
from the Dominican Republic aboard a 18-foot wooden yola.
Coast Guard Sector San Juan Joint Rescue Sub Center controllers diverted
the Coast Guard Cutter Cushing to the scene. The crew of the Cushing
arrived on scene, interdicted the yola and safely embarked all 13 migrants.
Once onboard the cutter, the crew of the Cushing collected the
biographic information, including digital fingerprints and facial
photographs from the interdicted migrants, and detained four Dominican
men for attempting to enter illegally into the United States or a US
territory on at least two occasions. The United States Attorney's Office
in Puerto Rico accepted to prosecute their cases.
The crew of the Cushing transferred custody of the four detained
migrants Monday evening to awaiting Border Patrol agents at the Port of
Mayaguez , Puerto Rico .
The crew of the Cushing repatriated the eight remaining Dominicans and
one Cuban onboard at 11:30 am Tuesday, when they turned custody of the
migrants over to Dominican Republic Naval authorities in La Romana,
Dominican Republic .
The concept of CBIG resulted from a March 2006 collaboration of local
Homeland Security components that effectively stemmed the increased flow
of traffic across the Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and
Puerto Rico . In July 2006, CBIG was formally created to unify efforts
of the US Customs and Border Protection's Office of Air & Marine (A&M),
Office of Field Operations (OFO), and Office of Border Patrol (OBP), the
US Coast Guard (USCG), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the
United States Attorney ' s Office, District of Puerto Rico, and Puerto
Rico Police Joint Forces of Rapid action (FURA) in their common goal of
securing Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands against illegal maritime
traffic and gaining control of our nation's Caribbean borders.
Coast Guard Cutter Cushing is a 110-foot patrol boat home ported in San
Juan , Puerto Rico .
Caribbean Net News: Cuba (13 May 2009)
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/cuba/cuba.php?news_id=16417&start=0&category_id=5
No comments:
Post a Comment