What are the names of people who came in the mariel boatlift?

Answer 1

During the Mariel Boatlift, I served as the Platoon Leader of the 1st Platoon of the 108th Military Police Battalion, which had the main initial processing center at Key Largo as the Marielites would be taken off the boats at Key West. This was the northernmost key right before the mainland of the Florida peninsula. Here, we could ensure that 100% of the arrivals were screened and documented before they were transported to other sites throughout the Miami metropolitan area that was staffed by the 503rd Military Police Battalion (XVIII Airborne Corps) that I was a part of. This documentation was provided to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) as the lead agency for documentation, among a wide variety of federal agencies. I would suggest a freedom of information act/privacy act request to the INS asking for the field documentation from the Mariel Boatlift. The US Army is generally prohibited from gathering and storing information on civilians that do not have a national security interest. I know that we were required to certify to each level of our chain of command that all records had been purged at the end of operations when operations ceased in the Miami area and the last remaining Cuban refugees were transferred to either Fort Indiantown Gap (PA) or Fort Chaffee (AR) and the Haitian refugees remaining at the Krome Avenue sites were transfered to the INS for support. Major J. Daniel Fulbright, US Army (Ret), jdfulbright@sbcglobal.net

Hi,

The Miami Herald has a searchable database with the names of all the Cuban refugees who came to the U.S via the Mariel boatlift - and also the names of the boats that brought them to the the U.S. Go to MiamiHerald.com/Mariel and then to the Passenger Search tab to find a name.