History Of The Mariel Boatlift

The Mariel Boatlift began April 15, 1980 and ended October 31, 1980, with the arrival of over 125,000 Cubans to South Florida from Port of Mariel, Cuba. However, South Florida had to deal with the consequences for years to come. Tension surfaced when six Cubans crashed a bus through the gate of the Peruvian embassy in Havana on April 1, 1980. The six Cubans demanded political asylum. Soon after rumor spread that whoever wanted to leave Cuba should go to the Peruvian embassy. Over the next couple days 10,000 Cubans entered into the embassy. Following the Embassy incident On April 20, 1980 the embarrassed Fidel Castro announced that any Cuban who wanted to leave to the United States could leave on a boat at the Port of Mariel granted that they
had someone to pick them up. “Within three days of the first arrivals in Miami, over 1,000 boats had sailed from Florida to the Mariel Harbor” (Greenhill, 93). In its infancy President Jimmy Carter was welcome to the idea of allowing Cubans seeking exile through the Mariel boat lift “an open heart and open arms” (Jimmy Carter). However, Between April and October 1980, 125,000 Cubans left Mariel (Florida Memory Archives) and began to overwhelm South Florida. Not only through a housing shortage but through a rising crime rate. Castro wanted to create problems for the U.S. while solving problems in Cuba (ADST). Castro ordered prisoners (street criminals and murderers), mental hospital patients and other undesirables transported to Mariel and placed on boats bound for South Florida (ADST). This brought in about 24,000 Cubans with criminal records, In 1982 there was 67 percent increase in felony arrests, directly caused by “hardcore” Cuban criminals and due to inadequate federal identification measure were freed by simply giving an alias according to The Daytona Beach News- Journal published on February 21, 1982. Also going on to say “higher crime figures coincide with their arrival.