The Coast Guard has so far searched about 7,500 nautical miles, an area about the size of New Jersey, she said. The search was continuing on Wednesday, but at some point, she said, officials would have to call off the operation as the chances of survival grew more slim.
The authorities in the Bahamas said information about the boat and those aboard it was still being gathered.
“Everything is sketchy right now,” said Keith Bell, minister of immigration in the Bahamas. “We are communicating with our U.S. counterparts, and we are in communication with the Ministry of National Security as well to see what information is available, just to confirm whether or not it did in fact come from Bimini and who were these persons.”
The recent surge in maritime smuggling of migrants to Florida and California has occurred as technology deployed along the land borders has made it increasingly difficult to elude capture.
The number of Cubans making the perilous journey is smaller than the large numbers that arrived before January 2017, when the Obama administration ended the policy that had allowed Cubans to remain legally in the United States once they touched U.S. soil. But the numbers are climbing quickly as economic hardship intensifies on the Caribbean island.
Haitian migrants, who most often embark from the Bahamas, have frequently boarded rickety homemade boats, paying thousands of dollars for a shot at leaving a country engulfed in gang violence, political upheaval and destitution after the assassination of the former president and a deadly earthquake. Migrants from the Dominican Republic have also tried to make the maritime crossing.
Since the beginning of October, Coast Guard crews have intercepted 155 Dominicans and 129 Haitians near Puerto Rico, with hundreds more taken into custody during the 2021 fiscal year. In September, the Coast Guard stopped a boat carrying 104 Haitian migrants, jammed shoulder to shoulder, less than 20 miles from Miami.