Word: mariel
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...from other countries to emigrate there. But after an airlift organized by Costa Rica had evacuated 678 of the 6,250 would-be exiles accepted by eight nations, including the U.S., Castro suddenly canceled the flights. Havana instead proclaimed that all the embassy refugees could leave by way of Mariel, a grimy industrial port 27 miles west of Havana; to lure boats from south Florida's large Cuban exile community to pick up the refugees, it was also announced that any Cuban could leave the island if relatives in the U.S. came to claim...
...take its complement of 3,500 embassy refugees with the understanding that the Immigration and Naturalization Service could screen them before allowing them into the U.S. Suddenly thousands were landing illegally in Florida with no entry visas in hand. Washington first implored boat-owners not to head for Mariel. When that failed to deter the flotilla, the Government hinted it might accept only the first 3,500, whether embassy refugees or not, and deport the rest. The threat was correctly seen as an empty one since the U.S. has routinely granted asylum to Cuban refugees since Castro came to power...
...even greater disappointment was in store for many of those who finally reached Mariel. Havana assigned only a handful of officials to log in the arriving boats and another handful to collect each craft's list of desired relatives. Typically, a boat had to wait several days for a first encounter with a government launch, and days more for its passengers...
...started the flood, he apparently has no intention of turning it off. "We don't want them, we don't need them," thundered Castro of the refugees at a May Day rally in Havana last week.. He claimed that he had opened Mariel to teach the U.S. a lesson for welcoming as heroes those who hijacked boats from Cuba in order to reach U.S. shores. Chortled Castro: "We really have an open road now. Let us see how they can close...
...iBotes al agua!" (Boats to the water!) Thus prompted by a Spanish-speaking skipper, TIME Correspondent Richard Woodbury boarded a chartered 40-footer at Key West for a voyage to the Cuban industrial port of Mariel. Woodbury expected to complete the 220-mile round trip in 24 hours but instead spent nearly a week in Cuba-including five days under virtual house arrest in a Havana hotel. Woodbury's account of his mission to Mariel...