“1980–Crisis at Ft. Chaffee,” Arkansas Times staff
“Overcrowding and frustration lead to riots by Cuban detainees, and a national spotlight on Arkansas.”
“Over 19,000 Cubans were detained at Fort Chaffee that spring, making the camp the 11th largest city in the state (Fort Chaffee’s history had often seen it used to hold detainees and prisoners, from German POWs during WWII to refugees from the fall of Saigon). Brought to the fort in early May, the Cubans had been promised a quick processing by immigration and medical authorities and then resettlement with their families, many of whom had been separated during the exodus from Cuba. Plagued by bureaucratic setbacks and rumors that Chaffee was full of Cuban criminals released from prison by Fidel Castro, however, camp life ground on for a month, with few Cubans released. Then, on Sunday, June 1, the frustrated detainees rioted, clashing with State Police and National Guard troops, destroying 4 barracks, and turning the eyes of the world on Arkansas for the first time since 1957. Sixty-two refugees were injured – some by gunfire – and 46 others were arrested. As Arkansas Times reporter Bob Plunkett wrote then: “Before El Domingo (Spanish for ‘Sunday’), the term used by the refugees to refer to the June 1 riot, Fort Chaffee’s only containment barrier was a limp cotton rope draped over a line of sawhorses placed around the Cuban housing area.” After the riots, Gov. Bill Clinton and President Jimmy Carter ensured that the lightly fortified camp was turned into a prison, encircled with miles of concertina wire and 2,000 heavily-armed federal troops. It wasn’t enough to keep White from triumphing with twin issues of “Cubans and car tags,” the latter a hated fee increase. [Bill] Clinton apologized in 1982, beat White in a re-match.”…(Above image of Cuban refugees in 1980 from Assn. for Diplomatic Studies and Training. US taxpayers were given 125,000 Cubans in 1980)
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More on 1980 Cuban Mariel Boat Lift:
“South Florida had to contend with the repercussions for years to come, including a marked increase in crime.” …Mariel is a Cuban port near Havana
April 2015, “A Flood of Cuban Migrants–The Mariel Boatlift, April-October 1980,” Assn. for Diplomatic Studies and Training, John Bushnell, Dep. Asst. Sec. of State, 1977-1982“The Cubans began arriving in Florida by the thousands. At first President Carter welcomed them. In early May he said they would be received with “an open heart and open arms.” However, the sheer numbers began to overwhelm southern Florida. The Miami authorities pointed out that housing vacancies were only one percent and there was no place for all these people to live.
Various domestic agencies began setting up refugee camps at military bases including Elgin in northern Florida. Tourists abandoned Key West which was a mob scene. INS announced that boats bringing people without visas would be fined $100 per person, but little or no attempt was made to collect the fines. Republican candidates began pointing out that the U.S. had lost control of its borders [but did nothing about it]….
Castro wanted to create problems for the U.S. whilesolving problems in Cuba. He had many of the street crime and even murder prisoners in jails as well as some political prisoners and the patients in mental hospitals and asylums transported to Mariel. He forced the Cuban-Americans to take several of his problem cases for each relative he allowed them to take.
As we realized Cubans were being landed up and down the Florida Keys as well as in Miami by the thousands, most were not relatives, and worse many were common criminals or insane, we began to see we were facing an invasion of a type never envisioned in our worst nightmare. Of course none of these Cubans newly arriving in the U.S. had visas; most had no documents, and there was no way to figure out who most really were. Mixed in were the mothers, fathers, aunts, and children of the Cuban exiles, but many of them also had no documents.
There was a great effort to set up [US taxpayer funded] refugee processing centers and to try to catch the criminals and put them in jail [diverting local law enforcement]. I was mainly involved in the issue of how to stop the invasion.
We arranged for the Coast Guard to intercept some boats when they reached territorial waters. But the best the Coast Guard could do was to escort some of the boats to a more orderly disembarkation in Miami instead of some bay in the Keys….the volume was such that the Coast Guard could only escort a small fraction.
I remember sitting in that windowless conference room of the NSC [National Security Council] with Secretary of State [Edmund] Muskie, the Chief of Naval Operations, the director of CIA, the head of the Coast Guard, and the head of INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] and several other senior officials, debating how to stop this flow of Cubans.
[National Security Advisor Zbigniew] Brzezinski chaired until President Carter came in toward the end of the meeting….
Some 4000 boats were at that moment waiting in Mariel.
Perhaps some would be deterred by fines and seizure from coming back loaded, but the volume presented tremendous problems for [US taxpayer funded] law enforcement. Already storms had destroyed several boats with substantial loss of life. Fines would have to be much larger to have any hope of success….
By mid-May over 50,000 refugees had already landed in the United States. About half were in camps where riots were breaking out, including one in Arkansas which had a big effect on the political career of its then Governor [Bill] Clinton.
Finally, the Administration announced large fines and the seizure of boats caught bringing in undocumented people. The Coast Guard redeployed its ships from all over to the Florida area to intensify efforts to arrest boats.
President Carter called on Castro to take back the criminals and other undesirables. Castro called for all Cubans to march in front of the U.S. Interest Section to protest U.S. policies denying Cuba the right to trade and development and attacking the Castro government….
More than a million Cubans marched past attacking the U.S. with posters and yells. We had evacuated non-essential personnel in the previous few days. But Castro provided adequate security, and little damage was done….
Cubans on both sides were prone to violence. During the first half of 1980 Cuba’s Mission to the UN had been bombed twice; one Cuban diplomat had been killed and bombs had been found in other Cuban diplomats’ cars. We assumed this terrible violation of laws was the work of Cuban exiles, but only a couple were caught….
Castro agents were collecting large bribes from people without relatives in the U.S. for forcing boat operators to take them. Many boats were forced to take only those Castro’s agents gave them and strangers who more or less forced themselves on board. Boats stopped going, and by early June the flow of refugees virtually stopped.
In mid-June a Florida judge ordered that some boats be released because they were needed for the fishermen to make a living. Shortly, most boats were released, and few fines were paid….
Toward the end of June the Congress appropriated $484 million to assist holding and settling the refugees and to compensate the communities that were impacted by the invasion….
No one wanted the criminals, homosexuals, and insane, and everyone insisted we make Castro take them back. I invited ideas on how we could make Castro do this. No one suggested either use of force or relaxing the restrictions on trade. As the invasion was basically over, the Committee seemed to shift to safe ground, and various members of the Black Caucus attacked us for not giving Haitian boat people the same treatment as the Cubans.
I pointed out that the Haitians got the same treatment as any Latin Americans except the Cubans and there was not a communist dictator in Haiti. INS seemed to argue the Haitians got the same treatment as the Cubans….
Over the next few years there was an effect of the Mariel exodus that neither Castro nor anyone else had expected. The hardened criminals among the boat people did not change their ways, and their criminal activities generate a crime wave in Florida.
Although the Cuban-American community suffered the most from these criminals, this criminal activity turned non-Cuban public opinion in Florida strongly against Castro.
Of course, many of these Cuban criminals were caught and sent to jail. Even when the jail term was short, these persons were then subject to deportation because they had been in the country illegally.
INS would then detain them, pending their being sent back to Cuba or elsewhere. Castro would not take them, and no one else wanted them….A significant number of these people are still in jail here at considerable expense to the taxpayer over a long period of time.
Also among the Mariel boat people were quite a few Cuban intelligence agents; only a few have been caught, although many have probably returned to Cuba.”…
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Added: “And [then Arkansas Gov.] Mr. Clinton failed to prevent the federal government from sending an additional wave of Cuban refugees months later.”
10/19/1992, “Refugee riot in 1980 gives glimpse of Clinton in crisis,” Baltimore Sun, Mark Matthews
(page 2): “Federal troops and law enforcement officers on the [Arkansas] base, acting under legal directives from Washington, refused to use force even when about 300 refugees broke out of the camp and roamed the countryside. Residents, already agitated by news reports of criminals and mental patients on the boatlift, emptied local stores of guns and ammunition.
“The Army had lost control,” recalls Dave Lewis, who had been sent by the U.S. Catholic Conference to help process the refugees.
In a visit to Fort Chaffee, Mr. Clinton rebuked the military commander. “He gave a stern warning that if they didn’t do something, he was going to have to,” Mr. Lewis said. Publicly, Mr. Clinton announced that he was giving the federal government 72 hours to strengthen security.
In a visit to Fort Chaffee, Mr. Clinton rebuked the military commander. “He gave a stern warning that if they didn’t do something, he was going to have to,” Mr. Lewis said. Publicly, Mr. Clinton announced that he was giving the federal government 72 hours to strengthen security.
That deadline passed, and there was another breakout June 1.
This time, state police, stationed at the camp perimeter, fired into the air to get the Cubans back inside.
Late in the afternoon, the refugees became more defiant.
“We could see them coming down the main street to the main gate. They were literally pushing the military out of the way. A thousand or so came over the fence,“ recalled Deloin Causey, the state police troop commander at the scene.
“They threw things. They literally tore up the sidewalk and threw it at us, and tried to attack us with live snakes,” he said.
State police, National Guardsmen and local sheriff’s deputies at the scene numbered 28. Major Causey, then a captain, radioed for reinforcements from throughout the area, but there was no time for them to get to the scene.
While National Guardsmen, lacking guns, wielded riot batons, police fired into the ground to wound rioters with buckshot. Five Cubans were shot, and several policemen were wounded.
Major Causey said he kept Little Rock headquarters informed and, through it, the governor’s office. But Mr. Clinton never gave a direct order.
“I was not taking minute-by-minute orders from anybody,” Major Causey said, noting that state law allowed police to use deadly force when lives are endangered. A key aim, he said, was to keep the Cubans away from armed local residents….
Mr. Clinton later met with the base military commander.
Up to that point, said William Cook, a retired National Guard colonel, the governor “had his state police and state militia and very little information.” State authorities had no jurisdiction on the federal base….
Mr. Carter beefed up troop strength and sent an aide, Gene Eidenberg, who quickly agreed that federal troops had to be able to use reasonable force to restrain the Cubans.
How forceful a role Mr. Clinton assumed in the immediate aftermath of the riot is being debated….
This time, state police, stationed at the camp perimeter, fired into the air to get the Cubans back inside.
Late in the afternoon, the refugees became more defiant.
“We could see them coming down the main street to the main gate. They were literally pushing the military out of the way. A thousand or so came over the fence,“ recalled Deloin Causey, the state police troop commander at the scene.
“They threw things. They literally tore up the sidewalk and threw it at us, and tried to attack us with live snakes,” he said.
State police, National Guardsmen and local sheriff’s deputies at the scene numbered 28. Major Causey, then a captain, radioed for reinforcements from throughout the area, but there was no time for them to get to the scene.
While National Guardsmen, lacking guns, wielded riot batons, police fired into the ground to wound rioters with buckshot. Five Cubans were shot, and several policemen were wounded.
Major Causey said he kept Little Rock headquarters informed and, through it, the governor’s office. But Mr. Clinton never gave a direct order.
“I was not taking minute-by-minute orders from anybody,” Major Causey said, noting that state law allowed police to use deadly force when lives are endangered. A key aim, he said, was to keep the Cubans away from armed local residents….
Mr. Clinton later met with the base military commander.
Up to that point, said William Cook, a retired National Guard colonel, the governor “had his state police and state militia and very little information.” State authorities had no jurisdiction on the federal base….
Mr. Carter beefed up troop strength and sent an aide, Gene Eidenberg, who quickly agreed that federal troops had to be able to use reasonable force to restrain the Cubans.
How forceful a role Mr. Clinton assumed in the immediate aftermath of the riot is being debated….
But the changes came too late to prevent an explosion of local resentment….
And Mr. Clinton failed to prevent the federal government from sending an additional wave of Cuban refugees months later. Accounts differ on whether he tried.”…
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Added:
4/18/18, “The impact of the [1980] Mariel Boatlift still resonates in Florida after 38 years,” Miami Herald, Robert McKnight
“Castro shocked the world by opening Cuban prisons and mental health facilities, transporting the prisoners and patients to the port for the 90-mile trip to Miami.…
Assimilation 125,000 Cubans caused great stress to the state’s infrastructure, and that of other states around the country, for many years. (Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton lost his re-election bid, in part, because of having to house Mariel prisoners in his state.) The tensions in Miami over the diversion of social- and criminal-justice resources from African Americans to the Mariel prisoners and patients probably contributed to the McDuffie Liberty City and Overtown riots the next month.
Crimes committed by the new Miami Cubans were recorded almost daily. Most data indicated that the impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the South Florida economy, education resources and labor market was negative, keeping civil and political tensions high. Some in the existing Miami Cuban community had disdain for the Marielitos. It was a tough time in South Florida….
The Mariel Boatlift started with a surprise announcement by Cuban President Fidel Castro on April 20, 1980. He said that he was opening the port for Cubans to leave the Communist island.
The Carter administration had secretly worked to improve relations with Castro, but was caught unaware and unprepared for Castro’s decision….
Helicopters had television crews on board recording thousands of small boats making the dangerous trip in perilous seas, with dozens of distraught Cubans hanging onto the boats.”…
“Robert W. McKnight is a former Florida representative and senator from Miami and the Florida Keys. He is the author of “The Golden Years…The Florida Legislature, ’70s and ’80s, Reflections on Campaigns and Public Service.”
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And Mr. Clinton failed to prevent the federal government from sending an additional wave of Cuban refugees months later. Accounts differ on whether he tried.”…
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Added:
4/18/18, “The impact of the [1980] Mariel Boatlift still resonates in Florida after 38 years,” Miami Herald, Robert McKnight
“Castro shocked the world by opening Cuban prisons and mental health facilities, transporting the prisoners and patients to the port for the 90-mile trip to Miami.…
Assimilation 125,000 Cubans caused great stress to the state’s infrastructure, and that of other states around the country, for many years. (Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton lost his re-election bid, in part, because of having to house Mariel prisoners in his state.) The tensions in Miami over the diversion of social- and criminal-justice resources from African Americans to the Mariel prisoners and patients probably contributed to the McDuffie Liberty City and Overtown riots the next month.
Crimes committed by the new Miami Cubans were recorded almost daily. Most data indicated that the impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the South Florida economy, education resources and labor market was negative, keeping civil and political tensions high. Some in the existing Miami Cuban community had disdain for the Marielitos. It was a tough time in South Florida….
The Mariel Boatlift started with a surprise announcement by Cuban President Fidel Castro on April 20, 1980. He said that he was opening the port for Cubans to leave the Communist island.
The Carter administration had secretly worked to improve relations with Castro, but was caught unaware and unprepared for Castro’s decision….
Helicopters had television crews on board recording thousands of small boats making the dangerous trip in perilous seas, with dozens of distraught Cubans hanging onto the boats.”…
“Robert W. McKnight is a former Florida representative and senator from Miami and the Florida Keys. He is the author of “The Golden Years…The Florida Legislature, ’70s and ’80s, Reflections on Campaigns and Public Service.”
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