The Entry Fiction
Cubans who arrived in the U.S. during the Mariel boat lift in 1980 are housed at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, on April 19, 1981. The fort first housed German prisoners during World War II and Vietnamese refugees in 1975. AP hide caption
Cubans who arrived in the U.S. during the Mariel boat lift in 1980 are housed at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, on April 19, 1981. The fort first housed German prisoners during World War II and Vietnamese refugees in 1975.
APWhen President Carter promised to welcome the men and women arriving on the Mariel boatlift with "an open heart and open arms," he had referred to them as refugees. But technically speaking, they weren't refugees. They were classified as entrants, an immigration status with a peculiar legal standing in the United States. While entrants are physically allowed to enter the country, legally they're still at the border, asking to come in. Their presence in the country is known as a legal fiction — specifically, the "entry fiction." So even as Cubans were disembarking boats in droves through the summer of 1980, they were officially still floating off the coast of Key West. And this immigration status followed them to where they went next: an army base in rural Arkansas. In episode 4, the curious case of the militarized border in the middle of the Ozark Mountains.
Additional Context:
- Read "A Refugee Camp in America: Fort Chaffee and Vietnamese and Cuban Refugees, 1975-1982" by Jana Lipman
- Read Boats, Borders, and Bases: Race, the Cold War, and the Rise of Migration Detention in the United States by Jenna M. Loyd and Alison Mountz
- Watch Against Wind and Tide directed by Jim Burroughs
- Read the decision in the Ignatz Mezei case, specifically the terrific dissent by Justice Jackson.
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