Miami’s Agony

4 minute read
TIME

South Florida is swamped by refugee needs—and violence

In the spring of 1980, when thousands of Cubans were mobbing the port city of Mariel for their helter-skelter exodus to the shores of Florida, President Fidel Castro denounced the emigrants as escoria (scum). As if to ensure that he was at least partly correct, Castro added some convicts and mental patients to the Mariel horde. Indeed, of the 125,000 “Marielitos” who landed in Florida, 1,709 have been jailed by federal authorities as undesirables, and 587 more have been locked up until they can find sponsors. Nearly all the rest have settled in Dade County, which includes Miami. The great majority of Marielitos are peaceful and eager for work. But a number of hardcore criminals— true escoria who slipped through the screening process—have brought a plague of murder, rape and robbery on south Florida.

Miami may soon become the violent crime capital of the nation, with rates for major crimes at least doubling since 1979. In the past eleven months 66 refugees have been arrested in Miami for homicide; an additional 72 of their own number have been murdered. Florida Governor Bob Graham claims that half of all violent crimes in Miami today are committed by Marielitos and that the refugees represent 20% to 30% of the city’s jail population.

The crimes Marielitos commit are sometimes remarkable for their viciousness. Says Lieut. Robert Murphy, head of the Miami police department’s homicide unit: “One of them killed two victims, one with a lead pipe, the other by stomping him to death with his feet. Marielitos shot at an eleven-year-old boy simply because he was a witness to a robbery. These criminals have a ruthlessness without any parallel that I’ve ever seen.” The refugees who go wrong tend to be slight young men, gaunt and hollow-eyed, who dress in sneakers, jeans and T shirts. Many wear tattoos advertising their criminal specialties: Madre engraved on a small heart for a hit man, a falling star for a kidnapper. Dade County Medical Examiner Joe Davis last month denounced Marielito murderers on a local TV show: “These guys are not even human. They’re animals. Not even animals. That’s an insult to the animal kingdom.” The murder boom has filled existing morgue space; Davis rented a refrigerated hamburger van to accommodate the overflow.

Miami’s 500,000 earlier Cuban immigrants, most of whom are now well assimilated, are growing increasingly hostile to the new arrivals. The term Marielito itself has become a fighting word in “Little Havana,” the teeming, prosperous Cuban community in Miami; there are bumper stickers proclaiming NO ME DIGAS MARIELITO (Don’t Call Me a Marielito). Says Bernardo Benes, a Cuban-émgré banker: “When I see Marielitos, I see numbers on them like the Jews in the concentration camps. There is a terrible lack of compassion for these people.”

While police struggle to contain the crime wave, the Miami area’s social services are being strained to the breaking point by just trying to take care of law-abiding Marielitos, most of whom are desperately poor. The federal spending cuts are certain to make the situation even worse. Some 16,000 refugee children have flooded Dade County schools since the Mariel exodus, requiring a $32 million addition to the education budget. Welfare rolls have increased by a third. Yet as a consequence of the federal cuts, 139 of the 176 county welfare caseworkers now ministering to the Marielitos will be laid off or transferred. Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital has accumulated $6 million in bills for refugee treatment, but the cutbacks mean that almost none of it will be reimbursed. Counseling programs and English classes are imperiled as well. Governor Graham estimates that in the fiscal year that began last week, Dade County will have a shortfall of $30 million from reductions in federal refugee aid. Beginning next April, the county will lose an additional $3.5 million a month when special federal welfare payments to 26,000 Marielitos end. Says Graham: “The Marielitos are a classic national responsibility. This is reverse federalism, with the Federal Government trying to abdicate its constitutional responsibility.”

Florida officials have been lobbying in Washington for more federal help with the refugee influx, so far without success. One thing is certain: the diminished aid can only exacerbate the suffering and frustration of the Marielitos —and the fears of all Miamians. Says a Florida welfare official: “Riots, kids forming street gangs, drugs, increased crime, you name it . We are sitting on a time bomb.”

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