Jimmy Carter's disastrous DREAM ACT: the Mariel boat lift

Gil Guignat, Phoenix Conservative Examiner
August 22, 2011

There are some 500,000 illegal immigrants plowing through Arizona every year. The damage to the environment is staggering. The crime from the drug trade is appalling. President Obama in his infinite wisdom now has enacted a policy to let anyone who can drive, walk or fly into the United States stay indefinitely and apply for a work permit and welfare benefits.

It is amazing that President Obama is competing with President Jimmy Carter for who has the most stupid and disastrous DREAM ACT and who will have had the most destructive administration to the country’s wellbeing in the history of the United States.

The year was 1980 and the economy in Cuba was in shambles where the Cuban GDP shrank by 35%. Our genius president at the time was Jimmy Carter. He agreed along with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to allow whoever wanted to leave Cuba to come and immigrate to the United States with no pre-conditions. The departure of these Cuban immigrants occurred from the Mariel Harbor in Cuba between April 15 and October 31 1980.

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Not surprisingly, Obama’s DREAM ACT policies now allow anyone on the planet to walk, drive or fly to the United States with no pre-conditions. The new arrivals will also be allowed to apply for work permits and all welfare benefits.

Over 125,000 Cuban immigrants came into Florida and unemployment went up a whopping 50%. What do you think will happen to unemployment now that President Obama has announced to the whole planet that anyone can come and stay in the United States?

Criminals and the mentally ill

The Mariel boatlift started going badly when it was discovered that Castro emptied his prisons and asylums. He put the inmates on boats and sent them to Florida. Basically, President Carter created the necessary conditions so that the United States would be viewed as a dumping ground for the worst of the worst in society.

“Fidel Castro declared that those who were leaving the country were Lumpens (or undesirables) and the escoria (or scum) of Cuban society. America had been tricked into receiving Cuba's undesirables among the refugees. Base-level cells of the Cuban Communist Party staged meetings at the homes of those known to be leaving the country. People were intimidated by these "repudiation meetings" (mitines de repudio) where the participants screamed obscenities and defiled the facades of the homes, throwing eggs and garbage, for hours. Those who opposed the intimidation became victims of the attacks themselves and lost their jobs or their seats at the college or university that they had been attending.Towards the end of the crisis, the repudiation meetings were forbidden, but the damage had already been done.

With no diplomatic ties or methods to distinguish refugee from inmate, many released inmates were eventually jailed in Florida for crimes they committed after their arrival.â€