12/29/04: Mariel Boat Lift (1980)

Dec. 29, 2004 — -- From Nightline, May 1, 1980:

Back in the spring of 1980, Fidel Castro opened some of his prisons and asylums and released what would become a flood of refugees. It came to be known as the Mariel Boat Lift.

We dispatched Nadine Muchin, one of our young booking producers, to Miami. Find us one of those Cuban refugees, we said; English speaking:

NADINE MUCHIN-PROSPERI: I somehow got to this refugee camp and somehow finagled my way into it, and as an official and I walked around the camp, looking for an English-speaking Cuban refugee, we actually found this man, Edwardo Portello Cruz.

So he and I drove back to the ABC affiliate, WPLG, he did the program, and then he was taken back to the camp.

A couple of years ago I was going through some old boxes and I found literally, this tiny slip of paper and on this slip of paper it said "Nadine Muchin of ABC News has permission to take Edwardo Portello Cruz from this camp to ABC News for an interview with Ted Koppel. She will return him after."

And of course, she did. But, if you think about it, there's not an immigration official alive today who would dare to do the same thing. Times have definitely changed.