CBP Intercepts Boat Packed With Illegals, Including Five Deported Felons

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) intercepted a ramshackle vessel carrying more than 60 illegal migrants, including five previously deported felons, over the weekend near Puerto Rico.

The bust unfolded on December 1 in waters off the southwestern coast of the U.S.-controlled island.

Agents aboard two CBP Air and Marine Operations (AMO) boats teamed up with a Puerto Rico Police Department Fuerzas Unidas de Rapida Accion unit to stop a “yola” with 63 passengers onboard, all of whom hailed from the Dominican Republic and Haiti and were illegally present in U.S. territory.

“Agents escorted the vessel to the AMO boat station, where Ramey Sector Border Patrol Agents arrested 63 undocumented migrants: 48 males and 6 females from the Dominican Republic, and 8 males and 1 female from Haiti,” CBP explained in a press release.

During processing, agents discovered that five of the men had already been deported from the U.S. after being convicted of felony crimes, including manslaughter, assault, and narcotics trafficking.

“A voyage on a ‘yola’ is dangerous when boarding a rustic wooden boat, which takes on water during the journey,” said Creighton Skeen, Director of Air and Marine Operations in the Caribbean.

“These unseaworthy vessels are only fitted with a single engine, they usually try to cross the sea overloaded and without life vests.”

U.S. authorities continue to encounter illegal aliens in waters around the Caribbean region and Florida on a daily basis as migrants from across the globe flock to the nearly-borderless United States.

Two days prior to Friday’s incident, a similar watercraft carrying 33 migrants was intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard and CBP AMO agents near Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.