27 Cuban migrants jump from boat in Florida, 15 detained after swimming ashore

Twenty-seven Cuban migrants reached Miami in his boat before swimming ashore and trying to hide. (WSVN)

The hunt is on for nearly a dozen Cuban migrants who the U.S. Coast Guard said were part of a “maritime smuggling event” that saw 27 people jump off a boat Florida and run to land.

Officials said the boat approached Virginia Key’s shoreline in Miami on Sunday and more than two dozen people jumped ship, swam to land and hid, the Miami Herald reported. About 15 were eventually captured.

“I got two of them and I stuck them in my car, and I brought them to the front gate,” Alex Fernandez, who witnessed the group jumping out of the vessel, told WSVN.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission confirmed that two people were initially detained near North Point Park.

Officers with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Miami police searched for the migrants by air and by land. Some roads in Miami’s Virginia Key were shut down during the search.

Video from the scene shows the migrants – some of them children – detained by CBP agents. Paramedics reportedly treated 13 of the migrants at the scene, however, none were taken to local hospitals.

A spokesperson for CBP told NBC Miami that 15 migrants had been captured and would be transported to the Dania Beach Border Patrol station.

According to witnesses who spoke with some of the migrants, they said the dangerous 60-mile journey between Cuba and the U.S. began on September 27. Their intended destination was Key West, WSVN reported.

“They got lost, and they were thinking of turning back,” witness Juan Montoya told the news station. “They actually turned back, and after like a day, they're like, ‘You know what? Let’s just turn back around and just see where we can get.’”