Mariel Boat Lift

Many of you may remember the infamous Mariel incident, where many Cubans were shipped off to the United States. This was quite a controversy, as many of the people Cuba sent were "undesirables": convicts and mentally unstable people. This was a mini-crisis in the United States, as there was no way the U.S. could process so many immigrants at a time. As you may well know, that is how Al Pacino's character in "Scarface" got to the United States. Well, many of those immigrants detained in prisons in America are just now being released and sent to New Orleans to fend for themselves. In most cases, they are homeless and have with them only the clothes on their back and shower shoes. The U.S. has promised to give aid to those left stranded, but of course this will not solve the whole problem. Here is a link to the story on Nola.com

[NOTE: This post was submitted by Desiree Dominguez.]