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Scarface
and Mariel's forgotten prisoners 213u6x
By Mark Dow, [emailprotected].
Posted on Tue, Oct. 21, 2003 in The
Miami Herald.
The 20th anniversary of Scarface -- starring
Al Pacino as a Cuban Mariel refugee who
becomes a drug kingpin with cocaine on his
face -- has ed with minor fanfare. News
coverage and the newly available DVD play
up the movie's cult status in hip-hop culture.
But Scarface has its place in another American
legacy, too: the utter abandonment of thousands
of Mariel Cubans in U.S. penitentiaries
and jails based, in part, on a myth that
Scarface has helped to sustain.
During a six-month period beginning in
April 1980, dictator Fidel Castro allowed
the departure of some 125,000 Cubans from
the island, most leaving from the port city
of Mariel. Scarface opens with text informing
us that ''an estimated 25,000'' of the Mariel
Cubans that came here ''had criminal records''
and that Castro had sent us ''the dregs
of his jails.'' Scarface didn't invent this
myth, but helped it stick.
The INS itself, says criminologist Mark
Hamm, ''indicated that only 350 [of the
Mariel refugees] were previously locked
up in Cuba.'' Reality did not interfere
with what Hamm describes as "the INS's
construction of a moral crusade against
all Cuban men [who left] from the port of
Mariel.''
Hundreds remain
Today there are 1,700 Mariel Cubans being
detained indefinitely by the U.S. Bureau
of Immigration Customs and Enforcement.
In a scene omitted from Scarface but included
on the 20th anniversary DVD, Pacino delivers
a rambling monologue noting that Castro
won't take the refugees back, that neither
country wants them -- and that this can
work to their advantage. "This United
States, they got nothing but lawyers here.
. . . They're stuck with us, man. They got
to let us go.''
But the United States does not have to
let them go -- ever. Here are some examples:
o Soon after his arrival on the Mariel
boatlift, R.G. was given probation for attempted
robbery. He also served two sentences for
misdemeanor marijuana possessions. Then
the INS kept him imprisoned for 19 years.
o P.A. was sentenced to 90 days for misdemeanor
cocaine possession. Then the INS held him
for 15 years before releasing him last year.
o L.V. served five years for attempted
murder -- and the INS detained him another
15 years.
Muddled justice
Such cases are commonplace.
Contrary to Scarface's cynicism, immigration
detainees are not entitled to attorneys,
though regulations do provide for an annual
custody review for the Mariel Cubans. At
these interviews, low-level officials decide
whether or not to release the prisoner who
has completed his or her sentence.
After one of L.V.'s annual reviews, immigration
officials denied him release on the basis
that he showed insufficient remorse for
his crime. In a subsequent review, they
denied him release on the basis that his
expression of remorse was merely a ''tactic''
to get released.
Mariel women are suffering, too:
o Maria D. served 14 months for misdemeanor
drug possession and she completed a drug
treatment program in jail. Then the INS
took her into indefinite detention. Denied
her anti-depressant medication, she became
suicidal. Immigration bureaucratsused her
suicide attempt to justify her continued
imprisonment.
Exploited loophole
There is also no appeal of a Mariel custody
review decision. How can this be?
In July 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
in Zadvydas v. Underdown that when an immigration
detainee's removal or deportation cannot
be carried out within a ''reasonably foreseeable''
period -- defined by the court as six months
in most cases -- immigration authorities
cannot continue to hold that person. But,
exploiting an esoteric doctrine in immigration
law, the U.S. government claims that the
1,700 detained Mariel Cubans are not covered
by the Zadvydas decision.
Twenty years after Scarface, director Brain
De Palma remains indignant that the ratings
board tried to give his movie an X rating
instead of R. DePalma recalls that the board
was finally swayed by someone who told them
simply: ''You've got to let the world know
what's happening.'' Most of the Mariel Cubans
I have heard from express the same wish
about their indefinite detention: Just let
the world know.
Mark Dow is author of the forthcoming book
"American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration
Prisons.''
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