Mariel Boatlift - United States Army Involvement

United States Army Involvement

In May 1980, the US Army dispatched the 503rd Military Police Battalion (commanded by LTC David Humbert) of the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to relieve the Florida National Guard units who were mobilized to handle the on-ground safety and security as well as daily operations of the various refugee compounds established throughout the Miami metropolitan area. These compounds were generally at the various decommissioned Nike-Hercules Missile Defense Sites left over from the Cold War. Other sites were established at the Orange Bowl and various churches throughout the area. Some sites were established to segregate the refugees until they could be provided with initial inprocessing at places like the Nike-Hercules sites at Key Largo and Krome Avenue. Once initially processed and documented, the refugees were quickly transferred to larger compounds in the metropolitan area so they could be reunited with relatives already living in the US as well as to allow interaction with various social action agencies like Catholic Charities, the American Red Cross, and others. It was at these initial processing sites that the undesirable elements were identified and segregated from the general population. The 503rd MP Battalion was augmented by Spanish-speaking soldiers of the 96th Civil Affairs and Psychological Warfare elements of the JFK Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg. As the Haitian refugees started arriving, interpreters were found to be in short supply for Haitian Creole and interpreters from the local Haitian community were put under contract through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). As the end of the initial crisis period wound down and after the vetting of those refugees who could be sponsored had run its course, the decision to transfer the 'hard to sponsor' refugees, which included those with criminal records, to longer-term processing sites at Fort Chaffee, AR and Fort Indiantown Gap, PA as a joint operation with FEMA and the US Bureau of Prisons among other federal agencies including the US Army Military Police corps. US Army members participating in this operation were awarded the Humanitarian Service Medal for their service.