PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — The surge in migrants trying to reach Florida shores continues.
The U.S. Coast Guard posted on Twitter Sunday that it repatriated 273 Cuban migrants after they were interdicted off the coast.
Many migrants who have already entered the country wonder if the new policies, which were outlined last weekend by President Joe Biden, will impact their current immigration process.
WPTV spoke to a Maykel Silva who crossed the border last April. His court date is this summer but waiting to go through the immigration process is a whole different hurdle.
Silva risked his life during a 20-day journey from Nicaragua with his wife and 9-month-old son.
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The trek involved walking through dangerous jungles, deserts and almost being swept away in a river to reach the U.S.-Mexican border.
"In the course of that, we witnessed kidnappings, murders, drug traffickers killed each other," Silva said through a translator.
He said his life was threatened daily in Nicaragua. He now fears not knowing what can happen while he faces the U.S. immigration system.
"I mean I filed a few Venezuelan paroles recently. It's been three to fours months, and there's no movement on them," immigration attorney Richard Hujber said. "We're just going to add more and more of these cases to the backlog."
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Hujber said he has many asylum cases waiting to move forward. If granted parole, it comes with certain benefits and work permits. But other migrants under different statuses may have to wait months or even a year for that.
He understands the need to discourage dangerous illegal migrations to the border and by sea but doesn't believe the new policies allotting 30,000 entries via parole will slow it down.
"There's a lot of desperation, people don't necessarily want to wait," Hujber said. "I think then you're just going to have this huge drain on the system as far as these paroles."
"Do you think now the additional 30,000 people they are going to allow in with parole legally, will those cases be expedited or at least go ahead of the ones that are waiting?" WPTV reporter Michelle Quesada asked.
"It's hard to say. We never get to the fine print into the specific details, and you hear about these paroles and that gets them to be here," Hujber said. "But does that mean the asylum case is going to be in any way treated differently or expedited? I don't really see it."
