Cuban Detainees

Who are the Cuban Detainees?

The Cubans came to the United States as part of the Freedom Flotilla that brought more than 120,000 refugees to the United States from the tiny port city of Mariel, Cuba, in 1980. Most of these people, soon to be called “Mariel Cubans” or “Marielitos” came to the United States because of economic problems in Cuba. A relatively small number of “anti-socials,” political prisoners, and petty criminals were also forced to leave by the Cuban government. The overwhelming majority of Mariel Cubans were law-abiding citizens. They included farmers, mechanics, fishermen, truck drivers, seamstresses, accountants, construction workers, plumbers, carpenters, and professional athletes.

Ultimately, more than 90% of the refugees were processed by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and passed along to their families or [Page 209]to private relief groups across America. During the INS processing, however, officials began to notice some Cuban men who were more hardened and rougher in appearance than others. Research also suggests that a disproportionate number of these men were minorities. Based solely on their appearance, the INS concluded that the Cuban government had taken advantage of the Freedom Flotilla by emptying its prisons of hard-core criminals. Though Castro denied the allegation, the media began characterizing the Marielitos as “murderers,” “vagrants,” “homosexuals,” and “scum.”

Why were they Incarcerated?

The INS identified 350 Cuban men who were considered to have criminal backgrounds in Cuba. This figure represented less than one half of 1% of the total number of Cubans who came to the United States via the port of Mariel in 1980. By comparison, in the same year approximately 6,000 out of every 100,000 U.S. residents committed a major-index crime, as reported in the Uniform Crime Reports. Criminality within the general U.S. population was, therefore, roughly 17 times greater than that among members of the Freedom Flotilla. Nevertheless, this small group of Cuban criminals inspired the belief that a number of émigrés were dangerous people who could not be trusted. They became the first cohort of Mariel Cubans incarcerated in U.S. prisons. Others cohorts would follow, including a small number of women among them, and their imprisonment would also be affected by the stigmatized image of the “dangerous Marielito.”

In addition to the 350 criminals, some 7,600 Freedom Flotilla émigrés had questionable backgrounds and were classified by the INS as “excludable entrants.” Such people were allowed to enter U.S. society under the strict conditions of INS parole under which their parole could be revoked without explanation. Over the next several years, the INS revoked hundreds of paroles and detained Cubans in federal prisons because they had no visible means of support or fixed addresses, because they did not have an appropriate sponsor, or because they required medical treatment. Other Cubans were sent to prison for violating curfew or travel restrictions, or for failing to participate in relocation programs. Still others were imprisoned for petty crimes. The INS revoked paroles for a range of infractions including driving without a license, shoplifting, or possession of small amounts of marijuana and cocaine. All of these men were given “indefinite sentences,” meaning that they did not know when, if ever, they would be released from federal custody.

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