An Admiral blew the whistle on this scary threat to Florida from the sea

There’s danger lurking in the waters around Florida. 

A vacation destination is being used for an ulterior purpose.  

And an Admiral blew the whistle on this scary threat to Florida from the sea. 

The Bahamas becomes a hotspot for smuggling illegal aliens into Florida 

Florida’s location and vast coastline have made it a prime spot for human trafficking. 

The Bahamas are less than 100 miles from the Atlantic coast of Florida. 

Retired Rear Admiral Peter Brown – a former Homeland Security official under President Donald Trump – warned that this vacation destination is being used to smuggle illegal aliens into Florida. 

“Normally, when we think of maritime migration, we think about Haiti or Cuba, maybe the Dominican Republic, but the unknown in that equation is the Bahamas,” Brown explained. “The Bahamas presents a special case, not so much because Bahamians want to get to the U.S., although a few do, but because the Bahamas ends up being a springboard for others who want to reach the U.S.”

A boat can reach Florida from the Bahamas in as little as two hours. 

The large number of tourists coming into the country and the popularity of boats on the island make human smuggling hard to spot. 

Human smugglers head for South Florida 

The economy of the Bahamas is heavily dependent on tourism, so the country makes it convenient for tourists from around the world to enter. 

Brown noted that the Bahamas is made up of over 700 islands, with some 50 miles from Florida. 

Boats carrying people are a common sight in the tropical paradise. 

“In addition, the Bahamas’ economy is so dependent on tourism they offer visa-free travel to citizens of 160 different countries around the world,” Brown stated. 

The United States only has visa-free travel with about 40 countries. 

“The difference is that the Bahamas offers visa-free travel to people from Russia, people from China, people from El Salvador, Guatemala, from Venezuela, from Nicaragua, from Jamaica, from Brazil,” Brown said. “And there are many people from those countries who want to come to the United States.”

Citizens of those countries can legally enter the Bahamas before they’re smuggled to Florida. 

Illegal aliens often head to South Florida because it’s easy to blend in there, because of the large immigrant population. 

Brown said that illegal aliens who arrive from the Bahamas are often indebted to their human smugglers. 

That forces them to turn to crime to pay off their debt. 

“What often happens is that people paying migrant smugglers are already part of the community on the Florida side, funding the journey for a relative, family member or friend to reach the United States,” Brown explained.  “This is frequently accompanied by a form of indentured servitude, where migrants must work to repay the smugglers, creating a cycle of crime that often goes unnoticed.”

The authorities in the Bahamas don’t have the resources to police human smuggling. 

“Their Royal Bahamian Defense Force, while they’re professional and cooperative, particularly with the United States Coast Guard, they just don’t have the resources,” Brown said. “They have the equivalent of 12 police cars, boats, to patrol an area the size of California.”

Florida law enforcement and the Coast Guard have to guard against the threat of illegal immigration coming from the sea.