By Carl Prine From Navy Times

The Coast Guard cutter Thetis detained 84 undocumented Haitian migrants approximately 30 miles southwest of Turks and Caicos Islands and repatriated them to the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. (Coast Guard)

While debate rages over an ongoing deployment of U.S. troops to the international border with Mexico on the eve of America’s midterm elections, the Coast Guard quietly continues to interdict attempts by Caribbean smugglers to sneak undocumented migrants into the country from the sea.

And the Coast Guard cutter Thetis was in the thick of two operations that netted 108 undocumented migrants from Haiti and the the Dominican Republic last week.

It all began on Thursday afternoon, when the crew of a Coast Guard HC-144 Ocean Sentry maritime patrol aircraft spotted what officials told Navy Times was a “grossly overloaded” 20-foot boat heading toward Puerto Rico in the treacherous Mona Passage.

Authorities in San Juan ordered the Thetis to intercept it. When the Key West-based cutter overtook the boat, the crew found it was leaking. They rescued a Haitian man and 23 Dominicans, including a woman and two children.

They transferred the migrants to the cutter Joseph Napier and then that crew offloaded them to the cutter Winslow Griesser to repatriate them to the Dominican Republic.

IMAGE: The Coast Guard cutter Thetis detained 84 undocumented Haitian migrants approximately 30 miles southwest of Turks and Caicos Islands and repatriated them to the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. (Coast Guard)

For more on this story go to: https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/11/01/coast-guard-detains-dozens-of-caribbean-migrants-in-unseaworthy-vessels/