an immigration nightmare

With Cuba being more open in the past year than in a long time in it's history a steady agreed transit of visitors from both sides it might not be long before Cuban citizens can visit their relatives in the United States, before Cubans living in America weren't allowed go back onto the island.

But throughout 1980 a massive transit of Cuban citizens were shifted from Mariel Harbor near Havana straight to South Florida, this became known as the Mariel Boat lift and was soon to turn into an immigration nightmare!



After Castro agreed to let anyone who wanted to leave to do so, this followed when several Cubans attempted to gain entry into embassies particularly the Peruvian embassy and the Venezuela embassy.

Following an incident were 10,000 Cuban citizens crowded the compound grounds of the Peruvian embassy in Havana Castro stated that the port of Mariel would be opened to anyone wishing to leave Cuba, as long as they had someone to pick them up.

A total of 120,000 Cubans arrived in South Florida several forced into detention centers, it was later discovered that several of these people were forced over were as Castro had called them "undesirables, several of whom were dredges from his jails.



This was an interesting episode in Cuban and American relations and was a chance of openness thirty years ago which one could say was completely smeared with dishonesty and sneakiness by Castro.