U.S. police reported that in November 2022, a Florida woman led an operation to smuggle Cuban migrants into the country on an overloaded boat without life vests.
Sixteen Cuban passengers are believed to have died when the boat sank 30 miles off the Cuban coast en route to South Florida.
The U.S. Coast Guard recovered the bodies of four refugees in the Florida Straits. One of the two survivors told the police the boat was unsafe.
Yaqulelin Dominguez-Nieves, 25, is being held at the Federal Detention Center in Miami on migrant smuggling charges related to the tragic incident. On Friday, a Sebring magistrate judge deemed her a flight risk and detained her.
Dominguez-Nieves pleaded not guilty to a 10-count indictment accusing her of planning to smuggle Cuban migrants to South Florida on November 16, 2022, where 16 people died, among other crimes.
Defended by the federal public defender’s office, Dominguez-Nieves faces the death penalty or life imprisonment for most counts in the indictment, including the deaths of three migrants found at sea by the Coast Guard.
Since Dominguez-Nieves wasn’t on the boat during the illegal trip, the Justice Department will decide if she should face the death penalty.
Her lawyer, Victor Van Dyke, from the public defender’s office, couldn’t be reached for comment on Monday.
U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe stated, “People smugglers exploit refugees’ hopes for a better life, putting immigrants in grave danger.”
As Cuba’s economic and political issues worsen, a significant number of people have fled the country in the past two fiscal years. U.S. border data released in October shows nearly 425,000 Cubans attempted to enter the U.S., mostly through Mexico.
In fiscal year 2023, which ended in September, U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered 200,287 Cubans at U.S. ports. CBP reported another 224,607 interactions with Cuban citizens in fiscal year 2022.
In a separate case, a Bahamian man is being held in Miami awaiting extradition, charged with planning to smuggle people from Colombia, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti to South Florida.
Vandrick Nelson Smith, 33, also known as Muggy and Vans, was arrested in March for allegedly planning three illegal sea crossings in 2021 and 2022, which resulted in the deaths of five migrants on one trip.
An accusation states that on January 22, 2022, many migrants boarded a boat in the Bahamas headed for South Florida. Shortly after departure, the engines failed, and the boat capsized.
Three days later, the Coast Guard found the sole surviving migrant clinging to the capsized boat and rescued him, also recovering the bodies of several deceased travelers.
