Eighty-seven Cuban migrants reached Florida's coast on Friday, including a group of 28 who waded ashore in a Miami Beach waterfront park, according to Reuters. Federal officials said most of the migrants appeared to have been brought to the United States by smugglers who carry Cubans in fast boats across the 100 miles (160 km) of open water that separates the communist-ruled island from Florida. The arrivals capped a year in which unusually high numbers of Cubans and Dominicans left their Caribbean homelands looking for better living conditions in the United States. Fifty-six Cubans landed in the Florida Keys and three came ashore in Key Biscayne, a wealthy island town near Miami. The 12 men, seven women and nine children who landed at Miami Beach told police they left Cuba on Wednesday in a makeshift boat, which began to sink somewhere between Cuba and Florida. They said they were picked up by a yacht and dropped off in waist-deep water just off South Pointe Park in Miami Beach, which is alongside Miami's main shipping channel in the shadow of luxury condo towers. --More 23 51 Local Time 20 51 GMT
