Frances Robles

And then 1962, Cuban Missile Crisis.

You know, we almost went to nuclear war with Cuba because it was discovered that Cuba had allowed Russia to place nuclear missiles on the island.

And so that was an incredibly tense moment.

During all this time, the CIA is trying to kill Fidel Castro left and right.

I mean, there's lots of lore about poison cigars and things of that nature.

And he always survived.

They always came out standing.

And one of the reasons they did, I think it's really important to underscore that one of the mechanisms that the Cuban government had was migration.

It was an escape valve.

Whenever things got too hot, when the discontent got to be too much, when it was clear that people were really unhappy.

Fidel Castro would open the doors and let people out.

And so, for example, in the spring of 1980, you had a major incident that was known as the Mariel Boatlift.

Today, 23 boats filled with over 800 Cubans reached Key West, Florida.

It started with a protest at the Peruvian embassy, and it ended with 125,000 people getting on boats and literally just sailing to South Florida.

The president has literally opened the floodgates, placing no limitations on the number of Cubans entering the United States.

That's absolutely right.

You know, for many, many years until fairly recently, maybe about a decade ago, it was very difficult to leave Cuba.

You had to get an exit card to go.

And so this was his blanket exit card for everybody.

People's families were coming from