White Lies: Podcast on Mariel Boatlift, Immigrant Detention

NPR has a new season of a podcast series White Lies that may be of interest to blog readers.  Here is a description of the new season:

“`White Lies,’ the investigative podcast from NPR that probes the uncomfortable truths deeply embedded in U.S. history, has returned for a second season.

Titled `The Men on the Roof,’ hosts Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace spend the season revisiting the story of an Alabama prison riot in 1991 when approximately 120 Cuban detainees took over a prison in Talladega, Ala., for nine days.

The detainees were part of the Mariel boatlift that brought 125,000 Cuban refugees to South Florida in the 1980s.

Throughout the episodes, Brantley and Grace examine how the U.S. government justified detaining thousands of Mariel Cubans indefinitely throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as well as find the men who took over the prison.” (bold added).

The Mariel Boatlift shaped immigration politics for decades, including President Bill Clinton’s tough immigration enforcement policies and 1996 immigration reform. 

Hat tip to Lexis Nexis Immigration for bringing the podcast to my attention.

KJ