The cataclysm of Mariel had also eclipsed a growing exodus from Haiti. Some eight thousand Haitians fled the country for the US throughout the 1970s, arriving in small boats and flotillas. But in 1980 alone close to twenty-five thousand more landed at American ports. The Carter administration detained a large share of them, and Reagan spent months transferring them from one facility to another across the country to free up more space.
