Over 100 Haitians Stranded at Sea by Smugglers Amid Rising Deportations from Dominican Republic

Last week, the Biden administration halted a push to transform the Kenya-led security mission in Haiti into a formal United Nations peacekeeping operation, after failing to secure support from China and Russia for it.

The news was the latest in a series of setbacks for the Caribbean nation as it looks to move forward from an on-going crisis that has engulfed the country in gang violence and forced thousands to migrate. The United Nations reports that over 700,000 Haitians have been displaced by violence, with more than half of them children.

The decision is already wreaking havoc as smugglers have abandoned more than 100 Haitian migrants off the coast of a remote nature reserve in Puerto Rico. All of them had fled the Dominican Republic after President Luis Abinader's announcement, the Miami Herald reports.

On September 16, Puerto Rico park rangers discovered 31 Haitians stranded on Monito, a small, uninhabitable island located in the perilous stretch of water called the Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Days later, the U.S. Coast Guard rescued additional groups of Haitian migrants, including 14 people on Monito and 64 more on the larger, uninhabited Isla de Mona.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials confirmed that the migrants, who included men, women, and children, would be processed for removal.

The increase in Haitian migrants attempting to cross the Mona Passage has taken U.S. authorities by surprise. Smuggling rings often use overcrowded, unsafe boats for these voyages, leading to frequent capsizing.

Reggie Johnson, acting chief patrol agent for Puerto Rico's Ramey sector, urged migrants to avoid these dangerous journeys in an interview with the Herald:

"There are safe, orderly and lawful paths to immigrate to the United States. There is no need to risk their lives traversing the Mona Passage in the hands of ruthless smugglers, only to arrive at our coast and face the legal consequences of unlawful entry," he said in a statement."