Frances Robles

They were doing that on inner tubes.

They were doing that on old cars that they rebuilt into a boat, on rafts.

And so it becomes what's known as the Cuban Rafter Crisis, because there's so many people, literally thousands and thousands of people that were in the sea trying to make it to the United States.

And so with that crisis is born an organization called Brothers to the Rescue.

And what they were doing, they were Cuban-American pilots who raised money to buy small planes and they would fly over the Straits of Florida between the Florida Keys and Cuba.

And it's where many, many people died trying to make their way

to the United States.

So they would fly over the waters and they would spot somebody, you know, on a raft, in an inner tube, what have you, and they would call the Coast Guard for help.

Absolutely.

They saved hundreds, if not thousands of people.

They did over 2,000 flights.

It was a big deal.

The Coast Guard was overwhelmed.

The Coast Guard couldn't handle the volume.

There was a point in the summer of 1994, Natalie, this is a true story, where there were about 2,000 people a day were showing up in Key West.

So why do I start with that?

So the reason that's important is because at some point the situation gets so dire that the Clinton administration and the Cuban government reach an accord.

People will try to prevent people from leaving the island.

And the United States agrees that when people are caught, they're going to be turned back.

And so what does that mean?