More than 125,000 Cubans arrived in South Florida in the Spring of 1980 in what's been called the Mariel Boatlift.
In April 1980, 10,000 asylum seekers flooded the Peruvian embassy in Havana.
That prompted the Castro regime to open the Port of Mariel to anyone wishing to leave the communist island. Hundreds of boat sailed the Florida straits and South Florida was inundated with Cubans searching for freedom.
