When you have been a Captain in the Florida Keys for as long as I have, you will inevitably come across a Cuban Chug from time to time. A Cuban Chug is a makeshift vessel that Cuban refugees use to try and make it to the United States, 90 miles across the treacherous Florida Straits, from Cuba. With little to use for navigation and vessels that are barely sea worthy, these Chugs will make landfall sometimes on the beaches of Key West and the lower keys but more often, they end up ashore on any number of the uninhabited mangrove islands. The migrants are then picked up by the Coast Guard or Border Patrol and taken to Miami for processing and they will either be released into the United States or taken back to Cuba.
The desperation of the Cuban migrants is reflected in the Chugs construction and design as many are assembled from whatever materials they are able to scrap together with little or no money to make the life threatening journey to the Keys. Using metal from cars, tarps wrapped with duct tape, wooden pallets and other scraps of wood powered by small car motors, appliance motors or even lawn mower motors, these foam insulation filled boats are a testament to human ingenuity and the desire of people to want to live in freedom. Sometimes the Chugs are created from small wooden fishing boats and other times they are completely assembled from scratch.
The amount of Cubans attempting the journey to the keys had slowed in recent years due to the ending of the Wet-Foot / Dry-Foot policy by the Obama Administration in January of 2017. Stemming from an executive order signed by President Clinton, Cubans who were able to make it to dry land (Dry Foot) were given asylum and a path to citizenship while those intercepted at sea (Wet Foot) were taken back to Cuba. Recently there has been a surge in the amount of Cubans attempting in migrate to the United States due to deteriorating political and economic conditions in Cuba as well as the pandemic. During Fiscal year 2021 there have been 838 migrants intercepted in the Florida Keys up from 49 the year before.
