Cuban Immigration Waves in Florida

Florida is home to 1,630,295 people of Cuban origin in the Census Bureau ACS 2020-2024 estimates, about 62.9 percent of the 2,593,343 people of Cuban origin counted nationwide (Census Bureau, Florida B03001; United States B03001).

Out of 22,416,077 Floridians in the same five-year survey, about one in fourteen reports Cuban origin (Census Bureau, B03001).

Miami-Dade County holds the largest share by far: 962,511 residents of Cuban origin out of 2,738,356, roughly 35 percent of the county (Census Bureau, Florida counties B03001). That is about 59 percent of all Cuban-origin Floridians in one county. Broward, Hillsborough, Palm Beach and Lee counties follow in the same table.

Hillsborough County's 114,807 Cuban-origin residents rank third among Florida counties in the table, behind Miami-Dade and Broward (Census Bureau, county B03001).

Federal agency records trace these movements of Cubans to Florida: the exodus after January 1959, the Freedom Flights of 1965 to 1973, the Mariel boatlift of 1980, the 1994 boat lift, and the parole programs of 2023 to 2025 (USCIS Refugee Timeline; State Department chronology).

The numbers in that table are the agencies' own, and they do not always agree. The clearest case is the Freedom Flights: the National Park Service counts over 175,000 Cubans in the first four years only, while USCIS gives more than 250,000 for the full airlift through 1973 (NPS; USCIS). The two figures cover different periods, and the State Department's 2000 chronology gives a third, 250,000, for a program it says ended in 1971 (State Department chronology).

Many Cubans fled to Miami because of its close proximity to Cuba, the National Park Service says, and Miami was home to the Cuban Refugee Emergency Center that grew out of a November 1960 request from President Eisenhower (National Park Service; National Archives).

After Fidel Castro took power on January 1, 1959, thousands of Cubans left for the United States. When the two countries broke diplomatic relations in 1961, Cubans could no longer get visas in Havana, so the U.S. admitted them under the attorney general's parole authority: more than 58,000 Cubans entered that way in 1961 and 1962, screened at INS processing centers in the Miami, Florida area (USCIS Refugee Timeline).

The children's airlift known as Operation Peter Pan ran in the same years. The State Department's 2000 chronology describes a program headed by Ramon Grau and Father Brian Walsh that airlifted 14,000 Cuban children under the age of 16 to the United States between 1960 and 1962 (State Department chronology).

The Park Service calls the Freedom Tower the single most important physical manifestation of this period. The General Services Administration began leasing the first four floors of the Miami News Tower on July 1, 1962 for the Cuban Assistance Center, and the building at 600 Biscayne Boulevard became known as the Freedom Tower (National Park Service). The Park Service says about 650,000 Cuban refugees entered the United States from 1959 until 1974, the federal government spent $957 million on the Cuban Refugee Program, and the Miami center closed in 1974.

The Freedom Flights were a U.S. airlift that carried Cubans from Varadero to Miami from late 1965 until 1973 (National Park Service).

The official start dates differ: the State Department chronology dates their start to November 6, 1965, while USCIS and the Park Service give December 1, 1965 (State Department chronology; National Park Service; USCIS).

They followed a sea crisis: in October 1965 over 3,000 Cubans left in a boatlift from Camarioca to the United States (State Department). USCIS records that President Lyndon B. Johnson, at the signing of the 1965 immigration amendments, announced the U.S. would open to all Cubans seeking refuge, and hundreds of small boats set out for southern Florida before the airlift replaced them (USCIS Refugee Timeline). Refugees were screened in Cuba, flown to Miami and screened again.

Pan American World Airways flew two flights a day, five days a week, from Varadero Airport east of Havana to Miami, and the flights paused from August 1971 to December 1972 when Castro stopped them (NPS, Freedom Tower). The State Department's 2000 chronology lists 1971 as the year the Freedom Flights ended, while the Park Service and USCIS both run them to 1973.

Congress answered the airlift with the Cuban Adjustment Act of November 2, 1966, which let Cubans paroled into the U.S. become lawful permanent residents after two years (USCIS). The State Department chronology says the act allowed 123,000 Cubans to apply for permanent residence (State).

The Mariel boatlift brought around 125,000 Cubans to the United States between April and October 1980, and many traveled to Florida on boats organized by American supporters (USCIS Refugee Timeline).

On April 20, 1980, the Cuban government said anyone who wanted to leave could do so through the port of Mariel. Cuban exiles in Florida quickly arranged a fleet of 1,700 rented fishing and shrimp boats, and on April 21, 1980 the first boat from Mariel reached Key West carrying 48 Cuban exiles (National Archives). Within a week, Florida Governor Bob Graham declared a state of emergency in Monroe and Dade counties.

Arrivals peaked in May 1980, when 86,488 people, 69 percent of all Mariel arrivals, reached Florida in one month (National Archives). President Carter announced the Cuban-Haitian Entrant Program in June, giving arrivals temporary status. USCIS notes that Carter chose not to classify the Cubans as refugees under the new Refugee Act of 1980 and used parole instead; some were able to adjust to permanent residence in 1984 under the 1966 act (USCIS).

Sources differ on when it ended. The National Archives and USCIS place the end in October 1980, when the U.S. negotiated a stop, while the State Department chronology says the Cuban government closed Mariel harbor in September (State Department chronology). The Digital Towns Florida history library covers 1980 in more depth in its Mariel boatlift 1980 guide.

The 1994 boat lift brought Coast Guard interdiction: in August 1994 about 30,000 Cubans set sail, and President Clinton instructed the U.S. Coast Guard to interdict them and take them to safe havens outside the United States (State Department chronology).

Two agreements followed. In the September 9, 1994 joint communique the United States agreed that total legal migration from Cuba would be a minimum of 20,000 people a year, and under the May 2, 1995 joint statement Cubans interdicted at sea or entering the Guantanamo Naval Base illegally are returned to Cuba unless they have protection concerns (State Department chronology). The State Department calls the two texts the Migration Accords (State Department 2009 fact sheet).

The policy known as wet foot, dry foot, which the White House said had been put in place more than twenty years earlier, ended on January 12, 2017, when the Department of Homeland Security stopped the so-called wet-foot/dry foot policy and made Cubans who enter illegally and do not qualify for humanitarian relief subject to removal (White House statement, January 12, 2017). To help meet the accords' 20,000 a year minimum, which USCIS says does not include immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, USCIS launched the Cuban Family Reunification Parole program in 2007, letting certain U.S. citizens and permanent residents apply for parole for family members in Cuba without waiting for immigrant visas to become available (USCIS CFRP page).

The Cuban Adjustment Act still applies: a Cuban admitted or paroled after January 1, 1959 can seek a Green Card after one year in the country (USCIS).

In the USCIS wording for the Cuban Adjustment Act, a Cuban native or citizen who was inspected and admitted or paroled and has been physically present in the United States for at least one year can apply for a Green Card on Form I-485 (USCIS). That one year differs from the two years the USCIS history timeline gives for the original 1966 law (USCIS Refugee Timeline). Applicants must also be admissible or eligible for a waiver, and USCIS must approve the case as a matter of discretion (USCIS).

The newest wave came through parole and has now closed. DHS added Cubans to its CHNV parole process in January 2023, and about 532,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela were granted advance authorization to travel under the programs, which began with Venezuelans in October 2022, through January 22, 2025; DHS ended the programs on March 25, 2025, and parole that had not expired ended on April 24, 2025 unless the Secretary made an individual determination otherwise (Federal Register, 90 FR 13611). The 532,000 figure covers all four nationalities, so it is not a count of Cubans alone or of Florida arrivals. Family reunification parole is in court as of this update. A December 15, 2025 Federal Register notice ended the Family Reunification Parole programs for Cubans and six other nationalities, and on January 24, 2026 a federal court in Massachusetts stayed the notice for parole already granted (USCIS CFRP page). USCIS says further updates will be posted on that page, which was last updated January 27, 2026.

The National Archives holds Cuban Refugee Program records in Record Group 363, which focus on program administration and are not a list of the immigrants who took part (National Archives), and the Freedom Tower in Miami, a National Historic Landmark since October 6, 2008, is managed by Miami Dade College Museum of Art and Design (National Park Service). Last verified: October 15, 2026, against the Census Bureau, USCIS, National Park Service, National Archives, State Department, White House archive and Federal Register websites.