Cuban migrants rescued from Florida lighthouse
KEY WEST, Fla. -- The U.S. Coast Guard says about 20 Cuban migrants who were clinging to an iron lighthouse off the Florida Keys will have to return to their homeland.
Chief Petty Officer Ryan Doss said multiple federal agencies had been trying to determine whether the lighthouse is dry land under the so-called "wet-foot, dry-foot policy." Cubans reaching U.S. land usually can stay and pursue citizenship.
But U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Peter Zauner told CBS Radio News correspondent Peter King that the lighthouse is not considered dry land and they'll have to go back.
At about 8:45 a.m., he said, a call game in from a "good Samaritan" reporting a group of people on a motorized raft about four miles from the lighthouse, a 109-foot structure in about 10 feet of water about 20 miles from Key West.
USCG notified Florida Wildlife Commission and the Customs and Border Patrol. All three agencies responded immediately.
They found the "rustic raft" with 22 people on-board. Two people came off safely and the other 20 made their way to the lighthouse. The 20 people remained on the lighthouse until recently.
An interpreter was able to get them to come off the lighthouse to safety and they have been transferred to a Coast Guard Cutter, or commissioned vessel.
Ten years ago, U.S. authorities sent home 15 Cubans who landed on an abandoned Keys bridge because they said it did not constitute land. A federal judge later ruled that decision was illegal. Some of the group eventually made it to land in the Keys on another attempt.