A Cuban woman who had come to the United States illegally was sentenced Friday to 7 1/2 years in prison for her part in a human smuggling operation last November that led to the deaths of 16 people.
Yaquelin Dominguez-Nieves, 26, who had been living in Sebring, Florida, was sentenced in Miami federal court, according to court records. She pleaded guilty in January to conspiring to smuggle people into the U.S.
According to court documents, Dominguez-Nieves and her then-boyfriend, who was still living in Cuba, organized a human smuggling operation in November 2022.
The Miami Herald reported that the woman's boyfriend was abusive with her and forced her to help him carry out his unlawful operation.
Dominguez-Nieves collected at least $11,500 from the migrants' family members in South Florida with the promise to bring the migrants from Cuba into the U.S.
On November 16, 2022, the smugglers' fishing boat departed from Playa Jaimanitas, Cuba, en route to South Florida with about 18 people onboard. It sank approximately 30 miles into the trip, killing 16 people, many of whom were children.
The boyfriend, who has not been arrested, loaded the migrants onto a small fishing vessel with no life jackets and with a captain who did not appear to know how to operate the vessel, according to the two survivors.
The vessel sank about 30 miles (50 kilometers) into its journey. The victims included children ranging from nine months to seven years old, as well as two 16-year-olds, officials said. Four of the migrants' bodies were recovered at sea, and their cause of death was ruled drowning.
Three of their bodies washed up in the Florida Keys, authorities said.
U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom imposed a sentence higher than that recommended by the advisory federal sentencing guidelines due to the severity of the offense.
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