Cuba's Exodus: Six Decades of Refugee Waves

By D. R. Ashworth · November 26, 2024 · Updated October 17, 2026 · 3 min read

• Cuba
• Walls, Borders and Flight

Since Fidel Castro took power in 1959, Cubans have left their country in a series of waves that continue today. About 78,000 Cubans left in 1962 alone; 125,000 crossed the Florida Straits in the Mariel boatlift of 1980; almost 40,000 rafters were intercepted at sea in 1994 (Congressional Research Service). And in 2022–23 nearly 425,000 Cubans came to the United States — more than Mariel and the 1994 rafter crisis combined (WOLA).

The first exiles, 1959–1962

After Castro took power, emigration escalated until it peaked at about 78,000 in 1962 (CRS).

Some families sent their children ahead alone. Between 1960 and 1962, Operation Pedro Pan, organized by Father Walsh, director of the Catholic Welfare Bureau in Miami, airlifted more than 14,000 children from Havana to the United States. It ended in 1962 when, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, air travel between the two countries was suspended; for the next three years parents could reach the United States only by way of Spain or Mexico (National Catholic Register).

The Freedom Flights

In December 1965 the United States began the “Freedom Flights”, which allowed Cuban parents to fly directly to the United States; eventually more than 90 percent of the Pedro Pan children were reunited with their parents (National Catholic Register). The flights continued until 1973.

Mariel, 1980

A boat carrying Cuban refugees arrives in Key West harbour during the Mariel boatlift, 1980. Photo: Raymond L. Blazevic, Florida Keys Public Libraries; resized. CC BY 2.0. Source.

In 1980 a boatlift from the Cuban port of Mariel carried a new wave of emigrants. Over six months, about 125,000 Cubans (and 25,000 Haitians, in a separate movement) arrived in South Florida (CRS).

The rafters, 1994

In the economic crisis of the early 1990s, Cubans took to the sea on rafts. The U.S. Coast Guard’s interceptions reached a post-Mariel high of almost 40,000 that year (CRS). The photograph at the top of this page was taken during the Coast Guard’s rescue operation that September.

The crisis ended in two agreements. Under the accord of 9 September 1994, the United States agreed to admit no fewer than 20,000 immigrants from Cuba each year, not counting immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. Under the accord of 2 May 1995, which resolved the fate of about 33,000 Cubans held at the U.S. base at Guantánamo, the United States began returning Cubans intercepted at sea — the policy that became known as “wet foot, dry foot”: those who reached U.S. soil could stay, those caught at sea were sent back unless they feared persecution (CRS).

Cubans who reached the United States had long had a path to residence under the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, which allows Cubans present in the country for at least one year to become permanent residents (CRS). On 12 January 2017 President Barack Obama ended the “wet-foot/dry-foot” policy, so that Cubans who arrived without authorization and did not qualify for humanitarian relief would be subject to removal (Obama statement).

The great exodus, 2021–2023

The largest wave came after the pandemic. Tourism, a lifeline for many Cubans, collapsed; blackouts, shortages and inequality fed the spontaneous nationwide protests of 11 July 2021, which were followed by detentions and imprisonment. In November 2021 Nicaragua dropped its visa requirement for Cubans, opening an air bridge from which migrants travelled overland to the U.S. border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection encounters with Cubans peaked at 44,079 in December 2022, and nearly 425,000 Cubans came to the United States across fiscal years 2022 and 2023 — more than the Mariel boatlift and the 1994 rafter crisis combined (WOLA).

Why it matters

Revolutions are judged by many measures. One of the plainest is whether people stay. For more than sixty years Cubans have been leaving theirs — by plane, by boat, on rafts and on foot — in numbers that have grown, not shrunk, as the revolution has aged. The government that restricted their right to leave for decades (see Leaving Cuba) has never been able to stop them wanting to.

Further reading on this site

• Leaving Cuba: how Castro’s state controlled who could go — exit permits, “regulados” and travel bans.
• Cuban economic crisis after the Soviet collapse — the “Special Period” that drove the 1994 rafters.
• The Berlin Wall and East Germany’s deadly border — another communist state’s people voting with their feet.
• All articles on Cuba and on walls, borders and flight.