0:00

This message comes from NPR sponsored

0:02

progressive insurance, where drivers who

0:04

switch could save hundreds on car insurance.

0:06

Get your quote at progressive dot com today.

0:09

Progressive casualty insurance company,

0:11

and affiliates.

0:15

Previously, on White Lives.

0:17

Cuban inmates took over part of a

0:19

federal prison in Talladega, Alabama

0:21

today. You know, he just said it was our only

0:24

option. We had to do something, and

0:26

this was the only thing we can think of.

0:28

Undesirables who came here in the big Cuban

0:30

boat lift four years ago will be sent back.

0:33

Has the whole list been deported?

0:35

There wouldn't have been any more reason for my job.

0:37

So essentially, we are looking

0:40

for a needle in a haystack.

0:46

Linda Calhoun slept poorly the night before

0:48

it all happened. Her husband had

0:50

brought home a puppy he'd found abandoned outside

0:53

their house and Linda and her kids had spent

0:55

all night trying to calm the puppy down,

0:57

trying to get it to sleep. They

0:59

took turns feeding it with a doll bottle,

1:01

but it cried throughout the night in the next

1:03

morning, she was a wreck. So

1:05

I didn't get that much sleep that night. Maybe

1:07

I should have stayed home that day.

1:10

But Linda would work anyway. At her

1:12

job as an INS deportation docket

1:14

clerk at the Talladega Federal Correctional

1:16

Institution in rural Alabama. In

1:19

that morning, shortly after she arrived, she

1:21

and and others were taken hostage by group

1:24

of men being held in the prison. Men

1:26

who were not serving a sentence for a crime.

1:28

Men who had come from Cuba in a mass

1:30

exodus a decade before and had found

1:33

themselves detained for years of the immigration

1:35

service.

1:36

Okay. In immigration, we have regular

1:38

a files, and we have

1:41

temporary files. But

1:44

with the Cubans, we also had

1:46

blowback

1:47

files, and they were copies of

1:49

the original files. We heard

1:51

from Linda Calhoun at the very beginning

1:53

of our story. Linda had worked

1:55

at the prison at Talladega for a few years.

1:57

She'd gotten to know many of the men who held her captive

2:00

And she'd also seen their files, seen

2:02

why the AINAS said it was detaining

2:04

them. Used to amaze me

2:06

when I had nothing to do, to sit

2:08

down and open one of those and to

2:10

look and to read why

2:13

someone was in prison to

2:15

start with. You

2:18

know, some of them got sent

2:20

to prison in Cuba because they

2:23

stole shoes for their children. Or

2:26

they stole bread for their

2:28

family because they they weren't working

2:30

and the family was hungry. Think

2:32

different things like that. If they committed

2:34

that here,

2:36

I don't think there's no way that they

2:38

wouldn't gonna be sent to prison. For

2:43

years now, we've tracked down nearly everyone

2:46

we could who touched some part of the story.

2:48

We've reviewed thousands of pages in the files

2:50

in the basement of the Atlanta legal aid society

2:53

and an archives from DC to California.

2:56

And we did all this to tell a story about how

2:58

these men had gone from refugees fleeing

3:00

communism to immigration detainees,

3:03

denied due process, warehousing without

3:05

a charge in federal prisons for years

3:07

and years on

3:08

end. And in the background

3:10

of this entire story has been a secret

3:12

list The

3:13

men who found themselves detained in Talladega,

3:16

the men who took over the prison and then took

3:18

to the roof to unfurl banner that said

3:20

pray for us Those men had found

3:22

themselves there because they were on this list.

3:24

A list of two thousand seven hundred forty

3:27

six people would come over during the Mario

3:29

boatlift, but who the US had to decided

3:31

it wanted to exclude to send back

3:33

to Cuba. The list had

3:35

determined their fates, that much

3:37

we knew. But what we didn't know

3:39

and what no one else knew either were

3:41

the names of the people on the list.

3:44

The government claiming that people on the list were

3:46

the worst of the worst. A danger

3:48

to the American public. But our

3:50

reporting had shown so many stories of men

3:53

detained for a mistake, detained

3:55

for alleged crimes in Cuba detained

3:57

for reasons that would never hold up if these

3:59

men were granted any sort of constitutional protections.

4:03

For decades now, the government has refused

4:05

to say who is on the list and who is

4:07

not has refused to fully

4:09

explain how the list had been put together

4:12

and not knowing who was on the list has

4:14

made the final move in our

4:15

story, finding the men on the roof

4:18

virtually impossible. I

4:20

wonder what would happen

4:22

if if I would take a trip to

4:24

Cuba, and if I would see one

4:26

of them. I would wanna find

4:28

out what happened you know,

4:30

just you gotta wonder. Some

4:33

of them, they weren't gonna make

4:35

it to the prison there, and nobody

4:37

heard from them again. And the rest

4:39

of them that made it to the prison, to what?

4:41

To die in one of the prisons, to

4:44

stealing a loaf of bread, or

4:46

a pair of shoes, Too

4:49

many ifs. Would they

4:52

take it out on me because immigration

4:54

treated them like that? Or

4:57

would they say miss Linda? Or

5:00

would they even recognize with, you know,

5:04

that that would be, I think, the

5:06

main thing, you know, to make

5:08

sure that the fellas that

5:12

I knew that they were they were

5:14

alive and still well, that they still

5:16

weren't locked up in some little prison

5:18

or maybe in some home.

5:32

To finish telling the story, we knew we'd

5:34

have to somehow get a hold of the secret list.

5:37

This piece of tangible evidence that has always

5:39

felt like the key to fully understanding how

5:41

the United States had treated these

5:43

men. And not only that,

5:45

but the list was the clearest most direct

5:47

way to identify and find the middle

5:49

of the move. To hear them tell their own

5:51

stories. And so today,

5:53

the list, how it came to be,

5:56

and what happened when we finally got our hands

5:58

on.

6:26

From NPR, this is White Lies. I'm

6:29

Chip Brantley. And I'm Andrew Beck race.

6:31

What's

6:32

happening on NPR Podcast? More neighborhoods?

6:34

More

6:34

identities and more perspectives. The

6:36

more of the world that you hear. The

6:38

more you hear the world as it really is.

6:41

NPR podcasts or

6:43

voices, all ears. Sign NPR

6:45

wherever you get your podcasts.

6:48

This mysterious and secret list of two

6:50

thousand seven hundred and forty six names

6:52

has been a recurring theme in our

6:54

reporting. It's something that just

6:56

about everyone we've talked to has mentioned.

6:58

There was a list and I've always

7:00

wondered what happened to the ones, but

7:04

As you know, it's impossible to find

7:06

out. A

7:06

list has never been made public.

7:08

Nobody really knew who was

7:09

on the list and who was it. We never

7:12

saw the list. I

7:14

I've got all my shorthand

7:16

books with every phone call I took for thirteen

7:19

years up in the

7:19

attic. But I don't have a copy

7:21

of that list. The list has been confirmed.

7:24

We know that it exists, but

7:26

nobody has ever seen it.

7:28

That's like the unicorn. Has anybody

7:30

ever seen the list? I don't think anybody's ever

7:32

admitted to see the

7:33

list. If you find the list, I believe it's like

7:35

a science fiction creation. A

7:37

science fiction creation, a unicorn.

7:40

While everyone we've talked to seem to know of the

7:42

existence of the list, no one had

7:44

ever gotten their hands on it. But not for

7:46

lack of trying. From the moment the

7:48

list was announced, people started trying

7:50

to force the government to release it. Reporters

7:53

some and to keep an American community and Miami

7:56

family members. So the men being detained, and,

7:58

of course, the lawyers who are advocating on

8:00

their behalf. In the files in the

8:02

basement of the Atlanta legal aid society,

8:05

we found a reference to a lawsuit filed

8:07

by the ACLU. In nineteen

8:09

eighty five, the ACLU submitted a Freedom

8:11

of Information Act request to the State Department

8:14

asking for the list. The Freedom

8:16

of Information Act, also known as Foya,

8:18

gets the public. You mean anyone.

8:21

The right to request records and documents

8:23

from any agency in the executive branch

8:25

of the U. S. Government. So all those

8:27

departments and bureaus and commissions

8:29

and institutes By law, they all

8:31

have to produce previously unreleased documents

8:34

if someone requests them. That's

8:36

the good

8:36

news. The bad news is

8:38

that there are some pretty broad and open to

8:40

interpretation exemptions that an agency

8:43

can claim if they don't want to hand over the documents.

8:46

Exemption one, which is a popular one, is

8:48

that the disclosure would jeopardize national

8:50

security. There's an attorney client

8:52

privilege exemption also popular, a

8:54

privacy exemption, a trade secrets exemption,

8:57

strangely, there's even an exemption related

8:59

to geological information about wells.

9:02

Anyway, when the ACLU filed a four year

9:04

request to the state department for the list,

9:06

state denied the request and said that

9:08

releasing the names of people on the list would

9:10

be an invasion of their privacy. In

9:13

response, the ACLU sued the State

9:15

Department and Federal District Court in

9:17

DC. I don't know that we expect it to

9:19

get it from Department of State,

9:22

but it seemed that

9:24

a federal judge once

9:26

you could make a legal argument would

9:29

release the documents based on what we

9:31

knew. The point person on the suit was

9:33

the director of the ACLU's political asylum

9:35

project. An attorney named Carol Walchook.

9:38

She's now an English language teacher in DC

9:40

where she works with immigrants preparing to take the

9:42

US citizenship

9:43

exam. We met up with her one night in

9:45

a meeting room at her local public library.

9:47

We were a nonprofit organization

9:50

that provided free legal assistance to

9:53

immigrants, particularly those who are seeking

9:55

political asylum, which presumably

9:59

these cubin, detainees,

10:02

or seeking, and that

10:04

we would be available to

10:07

inform them of their rights and provide legal

10:10

assistance if we hit the list.

10:12

So

10:12

it's a practical matter. Like, in order

10:14

to do that, you have to hit the list. Of

10:16

course, they would otherwise have to somehow

10:18

know that we existed and be able to reach out

10:20

to us even if people were aware

10:23

of

10:23

us. When she sued the state department for

10:25

the list, Walsh did something that, at least,

10:27

for our knowledge, no other advocate for the

10:29

Cuban detainees had done. She

10:31

called the government's bluff on Ignat's

10:33

Maisonsé, on the entry fiction. She

10:36

said, alright state department. If the

10:38

US government says these men are exclutable,

10:40

if, like Ignats Mazai, legally

10:42

speaking, they are floating off the coast with no

10:44

constitutional rights, no due process,

10:47

then that means they don't have privacy rights

10:49

in the

10:50

US. So you can't withhold the list

10:52

because of the privacy exemption. Many

10:54

of the reasons the government could

10:56

withhold documents about individuals

10:59

who would be citizens or legal residents

11:01

or legally admitted to the US, would

11:04

not apply to this population. So,

11:07

it didn't have privacy rights as exlutable

11:10

aliens and we thought that

11:12

we should be able to get their names on that

11:14

basis. And the district court judge agreed

11:16

with her. He ordered the State Department to

11:18

hand the list over to the ACLU.

11:20

But then something very strange happened.

11:23

Well, then the government classified the document

11:26

and filed and affidavit explaining

11:28

to the judge

11:30

why they classified the document and why

11:32

it shouldn't be released to us. So

11:33

the judge

11:34

ruled in your favor -- Yes.

11:35

-- but then the state department and

11:37

response to it classifies a document.

11:40

And follows a secret affidavit with the

11:42

judge.

11:42

The same judge. With the same judge

11:45

telling the judge Why the document

11:47

now is classified and should not be released

11:49

to us?

12:03

So just to recap, the judge rules

12:05

in favor of the ACLU. Tels

12:07

the state department you gotta hand over the list.

12:10

But in response, the state department classifies

12:12

the list. Claiming that it would somehow jeopardize

12:15

national security to release it.

12:17

And to explain this decision, it submits an

12:19

affidavit to the court. But the

12:21

affidavit itself is classified.

12:24

Only the judge can read it. So then,

12:26

the judge reverses himself, his own decision,

12:28

and says to the

12:29

ACLU, Actually, I've changed

12:31

my mind, but I can't tell you why.

12:33

It's just so that that that did up to well, and

12:35

it just seems crazy. Like, how does that

12:38

is that and and I'll just not know enough about

12:40

how this works.

12:41

Imagine that it's not

12:43

the only time it's ever happened, but I've never heard

12:45

of it happening. We actually went

12:47

back to the judge to ask him to reconsider.

12:50

But again, we were in

12:53

a pretty difficult, you know, decision

12:56

considering we didn't see the

12:58

document, that the government

13:00

that the judge was

13:01

reviewing. We didn't have an access

13:03

-- Right. -- to the defendants, to

13:05

the state department's secret

13:08

affordated

13:10

in the court. We don't expect

13:12

our court system to operate that way.

13:14

I could understand too how you could

13:17

make the argument that it's in bad faith, given

13:19

that it wasn't classified as confidential before

13:22

the

13:22

lawsuit. And then it was classified just

13:24

because for the

13:26

Voya. They classified it because

13:28

the judge ordered its

13:30

release. That was the

13:32

trigger. So

13:35

that list was

13:38

and still remains classified.

13:45

So the list wasn't just hidden and mysterious.

13:47

It was classified. After

13:49

a little bedtime reading on the espionage act,

13:52

we can to understand that our search for the

13:54

list raised a whole new set of concerns.

13:57

Was it illegal for us to possess this list?

13:59

Was it illegal for us to even ask sources

14:01

for it? Why would the state department

14:03

have gone through such links to protect the

14:05

names of two thousand seven hundred forty

14:08

six people the US government had determined

14:10

were exclutable. People who were not

14:12

citizens, people who had no privacy

14:15

rights, To try and find out we

14:17

filed our own Foyer request to the Department

14:19

of State for records related to the list,

14:21

communicate diplomatic notes, correspondence

14:24

between the state department and the INS about

14:26

who to put on the list, internal mimos

14:28

about the negotiations with the Cubans. Basically,

14:31

whatever they could turn up, And of course,

14:33

the list itself classified or

14:35

not. We had very little expectation

14:38

that our requests would yield anything, that they would

14:40

even respond to us. State is

14:42

a foyer black hole someone told us.

14:44

So the request was just the first step.

14:47

When state dragged its feet we were prepared

14:49

to do what the ACLU had done in the nineteen

14:51

eighties. We intended to sue the Department

14:53

of State for those records. Most

14:55

of the records we requested from state

14:57

involved one man in particular, a

15:00

man named Michael Kozak. Kozak

15:03

had been the lead negotiator on the American side

15:05

when the list was hammered out between the US and

15:07

Cuba in nineteen eighty four. He's a longtime

15:09

diplomat with a storied career. He's

15:12

still at the state department actually, been there

15:14

fifty

15:14

years, a ten year spending ten presidents.

15:17

During the Clinton administration, he served for a

15:19

few years as chief of the US diplomatic mission

15:21

in Cuba, and then later as the US ambassador

15:24

to Belarus. But in the nineteen

15:26

eighties, he was working on issues in Latin America

15:28

and became a key point person the problem of

15:30

the Marielle detainees. Naturally,

15:33

we've wanted to talk with them, but through a state department

15:35

spokesperson ambassador Khozak declined

15:37

our request for an interview. Instead,

15:40

this spokesperson said, quote, we'd refer

15:42

you to the public statements made by ambassador

15:44

Kozak in the 1980s on this matter.

15:50

Betty will come to order.

15:51

So far as we can find, the only substantive

15:54

public statement made by ambassador Khozak

15:56

about this matter came when he was called

15:58

to testify in a House Sub Committee hearing

16:00

in nineteen eighty

16:01

eight. The hearing was about the long

16:03

saga of the Mario Exclutables And

16:05

so in many ways, it was a hearing about the list

16:07

itself. Here's ambassador Khozak

16:10

from his opening statement. think we

16:12

always should go back and remember what happened

16:14

in nineteen eighty. The

16:16

government of Cuba at that

16:18

time sent

16:21

a hundred and twenty five thousand people

16:23

to the United States without reference

16:26

to US immigration laws or US

16:28

sovereignty. And in

16:29

fact, these people were

16:32

were dumped on the United States.

16:34

He starts wide. The boatlift as an

16:36

incursion on US sovereignty. The

16:39

boatlift filled not only with relatives of

16:41

Cuban Americans who had chartered the boats in the first

16:43

place, but filled with Cuban prisoners

16:45

as well. And then he lays

16:47

out the predicament, the government faced

16:49

afterward. What do you do when somebody

16:51

like Fadel Castro takes

16:55

people out of his jails and sends him up your way.

16:57

You can either release him into your society. And

17:01

we did that and the results were they

17:03

committed more crimes. Or

17:05

you can keep them in jail indefinitely, and

17:07

we were in the process of doing that

17:09

too. And that has its downsides. Or

17:13

you can send them back where they where they came from,

17:15

recognizing that that may not be the most attractive

17:17

society in the world. But you

17:20

know, none of those are perfect options. And

17:23

we were basically

17:24

going on what the immigration law

17:26

of the United States provides for.

17:28

The US was placed in nearly impossible

17:31

spot, Kazak says. And his

17:33

job was to figure a way out. And

17:36

this telling the negotiations with Cuba, which

17:38

resulted in the list, were a resolution to the

17:40

indefinite detention of these Mario Cubans.

17:43

And so the rationale for the list makes

17:45

sense. But how did the federal government

17:47

determine who to put on the list? In

17:49

this case, the only people that we were

17:51

interested in sending back were people

17:53

who'd committed serious crimes or people

17:56

who had severe mental disorders. Okay.

17:59

A pretty clear answer. The people on the list

18:01

were people who committed serious crimes or

18:03

people who had severe mental disorders.

18:07

But elsewhere in the hearing, Kozak says

18:09

this. When we had been trying to get

18:11

names of exclutables and data on

18:13

them and so on, that there'd been a reluctance

18:16

to really go into that too

18:18

much in the in the prison system for fear

18:20

that that would upset the inmate population.

18:23

That if if they saw that we were

18:25

we were seeking information on them. The

18:27

more questions we asked, the more we would cause

18:29

people to worry about in

18:31

the prison so we get rumors

18:33

started. This is where we get tripped

18:35

up a little. Kozak has said that they

18:37

were only interested in sending people back

18:39

who had committed serious crimes or those who

18:41

had severe mental disorders. But

18:43

then he says that the government was reluctant

18:45

to ask too many questions about the background

18:47

of these men? To investigate the men

18:49

who would be put on the list because of fears

18:51

that it would start rumors among the prison

18:53

population. So what was

18:56

the criteria to get put on the list?

18:58

This is what we've wanted to ask ambassador Kozak.

19:01

These are the records we've requested from state.

19:04

It's the main question we've had about the list.

19:06

Since we first heard about its existence and

19:08

first realized how long people have been trying

19:10

to get a hold of it. How secret the government

19:12

has kept it? Given what we discovered

19:15

about who could wind up in INS detention,

19:17

Gennaro Saroglass detained for

19:19

mistranslation Alberto Herrera,

19:22

detained for the theft of goat cheese in Cuba

19:24

in the seventies. The men at Fort

19:26

Shaffee, detained for not being

19:29

able to get sponsored out of Fort Shaffee. It

19:31

made you wonder, what kind of due

19:33

diligence did the US government conduct

19:35

about these men in custody in nineteen eighty

19:37

four? I've been asked over the

19:39

years. How

19:40

did you get on the list? Were those the worst

19:42

people? No. That's Gary Lishaw

19:44

again. He's the one who'd given us access

19:46

to the files in the basement of the Atlanta legal

19:49

aid society. He'd represented hundreds

19:51

of Cuban men detained by the INS throughout

19:53

the nineteen eighties. And his read on the

19:55

list? You got on the list because

19:57

on that day, those are the

19:59

people that the US government could identify.

20:02

Who were either in immigration custody

20:05

or they were serving sentences somewhere or

20:07

that the government knew about that they wanted to send

20:10

back.

20:10

We knew there were hundreds of people who had been

20:12

detained since arrival, suspected of serious

20:15

criminal activity in Cuba. But

20:17

there were two thousand seven hundred people on the

20:19

list. Which meant that the majority of those

20:21

on the list had somehow run afoul of the law

20:23

here in the

20:24

US. But what could they have

20:26

done to find themselves on the list?

20:28

If

20:29

they committed a serious crime, they were probably

20:31

serving a sentence. But if they

20:33

serve whatever sense they were had been sentenced

20:35

to, In finished, immigration

20:37

would pick them up and move them to Atlanta.

20:39

Remember the precarious situation that

20:41

faced all of the Morio Cubans? The

20:43

legal fiction that they weren't here at all,

20:46

that they were floating off the coast of Key West

20:48

asking for admission into the country.

20:50

And this status was still at play for thousands

20:53

of Moriel Cubans. They had only been paroled

20:55

into the US. And so if one of

20:57

them was convicted of a crime, that parole

20:59

would be revoked and they would be deemed inadmissible

21:02

into the US. Functionally,

21:04

what this meant is that if a Mario Cuban

21:06

served time in a state prison or local jail,

21:09

sometimes frequent minor offenses. The

21:11

INS would show up to take them into custody

21:13

after their sentence was complete. And

21:16

it's not like Eventually, the INS took

21:18

debit to custody after their sentence was complete.

21:20

In many cases, the person never even

21:23

left the jail. One person

21:25

who served sixteen months in a prison in New

21:27

York state would later tell us how this worked.

21:29

He had served as senate released early for

21:31

good behavior, he was being processed out

21:33

at the Sally Port of the Prison collecting his personal

21:36

effects. He could see his family there

21:38

on the outside waiting to take him home.

21:40

And as he walked toward the door to the outside,

21:43

INS agents stepped in and took custody

21:45

of him right there in the vestibule of prison.

21:48

That night, the government plane took him to

21:50

the Federal Penn in Atlanta. And

21:53

this person who had served as sixteen months

21:55

since he would end up spending years

21:57

more in prison detained by the INS.

22:00

And in some cases, the INS detained people

22:02

who had not served any time in the jail.

22:04

It detained people it only suspected of

22:06

having committed a crime or people they

22:08

believed would soon be charged with the

22:10

crime. You

22:11

might have had some people who didn't committed

22:13

crime. We're not charged with committing a crime, but

22:15

they caused some other problem. You might have

22:17

people who have picked up from minor things, a guy

22:19

got drunk through a rock, or

22:21

something. They didn't press charges, but immigration

22:24

found out they took them to Atlanta. The

22:26

Reagan administration, and an internal memo

22:28

from this time seems to acknowledge the reality

22:31

that some of the men being held in Atlanta were

22:33

never charged with the crime. Writing

22:35

about the implications, a Supreme Court case

22:37

might have on the indefinite detention and now

22:40

planned deportation of these Mario Cubans,

22:42

a government attorney wrote in a memo what

22:45

for my money stands as a monumental

22:47

achievement in legalese. Quote,

22:49

their guilt in the offense which resulted

22:52

in their incarceration has never been

22:54

adjudicated. Their

22:59

guilt has never been adjudicated This

23:02

Reagan administration lawyer is hedging

23:04

with his loopy sentence structured, but

23:06

a declassified document released by the state

23:09

defer. Years ago, says the same

23:11

thing, but in a much more direct way.

23:13

It states that while the justice department and

23:15

the INS maintained that all persons on

23:17

the list had serious criminal backgrounds, quote,

23:20

the dossiers supplied by the INS

23:23

frequently do not show commissions of

23:25

such crimes. End quote. One

23:29

case we read about in the files in the basement of

23:31

the Atlanta legal aid society involved a man

23:33

named Pedro Priore

23:34

Rodriguez. He had no criminal record.

23:36

He was

23:37

sponsored out to halfway house in Rochester, New

23:39

York. And one night, in November of nineteen

23:41

eighty three, he was walking home. He was

23:43

mugged by three men. And attacks

23:45

so brutal he would wind up losing an eye.

23:48

Claiming he needed specialized medical

23:49

care, the INS revoked his immigration role

23:51

and sent him to Atlanta. He was

23:54

told by the

23:54

INS that he would be released later that

23:56

year, but he was not. He was

23:58

told again, he'd be released in nineteen eighty

24:00

six, with the INS saying, quote,

24:02

we have made a positive recommendation. But

24:06

in March of nineteen eighty seven, he was

24:08

still in immigration detention. My

24:11

only crime he told a reporter was

24:13

losing my eye. Which

24:18

brings us back to the list Was

24:21

this man who lost his eye? Pedro

24:23

Priore Rodriguez? Was he on the

24:25

list? How did this list come together

24:28

in the first place?

24:29

During the Marietta negotiations, we

24:32

spent days and days, if not

24:34

weeks, going over these

24:36

lists of names.

24:38

Stephanie Van Rygersburg was the interpreter

24:40

for the American delegation during the list negotiations.

24:43

You know, it was it was completely chaotic,

24:47

let's say. And then every

24:49

once in a while, we would come back and we'd sit

24:51

down and pretend to be organized, but

24:53

it was basically a mess. It was

24:56

the most exacting

24:59

thing I've ever done. I mean, these pages

25:02

were just enough to make you blind.

25:04

They were just you know, maybe fifty

25:06

names on a page and you'd have

25:08

to use a ruler or you'd get mixed up

25:10

because the line would run into another line.

25:13

And it was so difficult about it because

25:16

the names, as far as

25:18

I know, were drawn up by us.

25:20

And at least to judge from

25:22

the guy from the INS who

25:26

was completely ignorant of

25:28

the system of naming in

25:30

Latin American countries. He

25:33

didn't even know that everybody in

25:35

Latin America has two last names.

25:38

So he thought that Juan Gonzales

25:41

and Juan Perez were different people.

25:43

If it was Juan Gonzales Perez, he

25:45

thought it was a mistake. So

25:49

untangling that was

25:51

one of the more idiotic

25:53

things we had to do was the huge waste

25:56

time. So the list that was presented

25:58

to the Cuban side had

26:00

not been filtered at all

26:03

for mistakes.

26:04

So they're reading the names one after another

26:06

over a course of about eighteen hours.

26:09

It's a very long tedious task.

26:11

That's William Leo Grande, co author

26:13

of the book Backchannel to Cuba,

26:15

the hidden history of negotiations between

26:18

Washington and Havana. Which chronicles

26:20

fifty years of diplomatic relations between

26:22

the US and Cuba, including the negotiations

26:25

about the list.

26:26

And at one point, the US

26:28

delegation reading

26:30

the name said, Nomei

26:32

Hodes. And the Cubans

26:34

all began to laugh and

26:36

the US side didn't understand it.

26:38

Well, it turns out that that this particular

26:41

Cuban being interviewed by

26:43

INS when he was asked what his name

26:45

was, he said, Spanish

26:50

for don't fuck with me. The interrogator

26:52

just dutifully wrote that down thinking that

26:54

it was the guy's name. It just

26:57

I

26:57

mean, it it cut sort of boggles the mind because

26:59

are we talking about a man, a human man

27:02

who came over in the Mario Boatlift in nineteen

27:04

eighty, who's sitting in the Atlanta federal penitentiary

27:07

in nineteen eighty four. And all

27:09

the US government knows about him is

27:11

that he has a alias of Nomaejotis.

27:13

Well, this this speaks directly to

27:16

your point as to how much did

27:18

did INS interviewers really

27:20

know about these people.

27:40

They are unwanted. Two thousand five hundred criminals

27:42

and mental patients who got into this country

27:44

from Cuba They were among more than a

27:46

hundred thousand Cubans who came here in the

27:48

nineteen eighty

27:49

Boatlift. Now a deal to return

27:51

them to Cuba may be close. The announcement from

27:53

see Tom Brokall was the first news

27:55

of the repatriation agreement made on December

27:58

fourteenth nineteen eighty four. And

28:00

just a couple of months later, the deportations

28:02

of Mario Cubans began. The

28:05

first twenty three men to be deported were

28:07

transferred from the Atlanta federal penitentiary

28:09

to an air force base just north of

28:11

city. But I fully well expect to

28:13

hear six months or three months or a year from

28:15

now that some of these people have fallen

28:17

onto some disastrous times when they've returned

28:19

to

28:19

Cuba. God knows what's gonna happen to

28:21

these fellows when they go back up. That's the voice

28:23

of Dale Schwartz at a press conference on the

28:25

Tarmac of the Air Force Base on the day

28:27

of the first deportation flights. Schwartz

28:30

was one of the immigration attorneys recruited by

28:32

the Atlanta legal aid society to help represent

28:34

the Mario detainees. Two people

28:36

have yet to go before any judge

28:38

anywhere and and tell their story.

28:41

In the files in the basement of Atlanta legal

28:43

aid society, we found a legal brief filed

28:45

by shorts and other lawyers on behalf

28:47

of the Cuban detainees. It's from January

28:50

nineteen eighty five, just a few weeks after

28:52

the list was announced, but before repatriation flights

28:55

began. The government would not hand

28:57

over the list, so the legal aid lawyers can

28:59

ask the government to respond to some questions

29:01

about him. Were there people on

29:03

the list who had been deemed excludable solely

29:05

for lacking entry papers? Yes,

29:08

the government responded. Were

29:10

there people on the list who had been approved

29:12

for release from the prison, but were still waiting

29:14

for a sponsorship yes, the government

29:16

responded. Were there people on the

29:18

list who had already been sponsored out and

29:20

were no longer being detained? Yes,

29:23

the government responded. For those

29:25

Mario Cubans on the list who have children

29:27

in the United States and wives who are citizens

29:29

or permanent residents, Does the government

29:31

intend to inform them that their father or

29:33

husband is about to be deported? No.

29:36

The government responded. That would be,

29:38

quote, overly burdensome and would require

29:41

an individual search of each Cuban's

29:43

file. But

29:45

even as questions swirled about the list,

29:47

who was on it and why the flights

29:50

to repatriate these men continue?

29:53

Officials would not say what if anything the

29:55

prisoners said as they left. After years

29:57

of legal struggle, the events seemed almost

30:00

anticlimactic to observers as

30:02

seven twenty seven soared into the air

30:04

for the two hour flight to

30:05

Havana. In the first few months of

30:07

nineteen eighty five, a total of two hundred

30:09

and one Mario Cubans were repatriated. But

30:12

all of that ended abruptly in May of

30:14

eighty five, when the Reagan administration launched

30:16

the pro democracy network radio marty,

30:19

which broadcast from South Florida and

30:21

reached deep into Cuba. Castro

30:23

was furious, and to retaliate,

30:26

he immediately scuttle the freshly inked

30:28

immigration accord. For the men

30:30

detained by the INS it was a double edged

30:32

sword. While they didn't have to fear

30:34

immediate repatriation to Cuba,

30:36

their stay in federal prisons had become

30:39

indefinite once again.

30:47

Set out to tell the definitive story of

30:49

the Mario d tenies, and inevitably,

30:51

you have to decide how best to deal with the

30:53

many different uprisings because

30:55

there were a lot of uprisings. There

30:57

was a one in Talladega in nineteen ninety one

30:59

that we told you about at the very start of the story.

31:02

There were the protests at Fort Chaffe that led

31:04

to the barbed wire and the national guard at the

31:06

camp back in nineteen eighty. Then

31:08

there was the uprising at the Atlanta Penn in

31:10

nineteen eighty four. You heard about that one last

31:12

time. The investigator, Susan Miller,

31:14

remember she put the uprisings into a

31:16

larger context. What

31:19

they were doing is they were trying

31:21

to speak about their

31:23

condition. And of course, their condition

31:26

was not good. The United States

31:28

government insisted that in the eyes of the law,

31:30

the Mario detainees weren't really here.

31:32

The presence in the country, a legal fiction,

31:35

a fiction not subject to the protections

31:37

of the constitution. Yet,

31:40

they sat in federal prisons. Definitely

31:42

contained year after

31:43

year. And in November of nineteen

31:45

eighty seven, their desperation led

31:47

to another uprising, the big

31:49

one, the biggest one of all. Mario

31:52

Cubans took over the federal penitentiary in

31:54

Atlanta for eleven days. It

31:56

took ninety hostages. Thick

31:58

black smoke hangs over Atlanta's gonna OPENETENTRIE

32:01

WHERE SOME fifteen hundred MARIOITOs ARE

32:03

BEING HELPED. AND IT ALL STARTED

32:06

BECAUSE OF THE LIST. After

32:08

the radio marty fiasco scheduled the

32:10

repatriation agreement in nineteen eighty five,

32:12

negotiators from the US and Cuba met

32:14

throughout nineteen eighty six and eighty seven trying

32:17

to get back to terms. And finally,

32:19

in nineteen eighty seven, just before Thanksgiving,

32:22

the two countries agreed to reinstate the

32:24

migration agreement. Same terms,

32:26

same names, same secrets, same

32:29

list. And once word of the agreement

32:31

reached the men detained in

32:32

Atlanta, They decided once more

32:35

to speak about their condition.

32:37

123123I

32:40

got a message into the public opinion of

32:42

the United States.

32:49

Because many of the men inside the prison

32:51

had lived free in the US for years,

32:53

It started lives here. They've gotten married,

32:55

had children, helped jobs. But

32:57

because of a conviction or even suspicion

32:59

of criminal activity, they'd found themselves

33:01

locked up in immigration detention. And

33:04

during the takeover of

33:05

Atlanta, many of their families were speaking

33:07

to the press. What's your greatest spirit

33:09

about your husband right now? That he can be

33:11

deployed and I have a daughter five year old.

33:14

And what I'm gonna do is gonna happen to

33:16

my daughter without a

33:17

father. I can't let that happen. Was

33:19

he on his interview? A session

33:21

of marijuana. Many of the crimes

33:23

committed by the Mario Cubans detained by

33:25

the INS had been nonviolent. Drug

33:28

charges or property crimes comprise most

33:30

violations. There were indeed some

33:32

Mario Cubans who committed serious and

33:35

violent crimes here in the US. But

33:37

most of those people were still serving sentences

33:39

in state prisons for those convictions. They

33:42

were not being released early for good behavior.

33:44

They were not being intercepted by the INS

33:47

and the vestibule of the jail as their families

33:49

waited outside for them to be released.

33:51

What do you want from this? What do you want it's

33:54

for them to look at the files to see that

33:56

they committed a narrative like anybody else that

33:58

commits a narrative, they serve the time and

34:01

he has been between a year and a half after

34:03

he served the fifteen months since

34:04

then. Up.

34:06

Oh, witness news, jeez.

34:08

Emotions spilling over in Atlanta, there's finally

34:10

something to cheer about. Good evening, the prisoner

34:13

deal is

34:13

over. All hostages are safe. Cuban

34:15

prisoners being scattered across the country

34:17

tonight while hostage families enjoy their first

34:19

night to get The Atlanta riot ended after

34:21

eleven days. And just like in Talladega,

34:24

none of the hostages were badly injured. And

34:26

many of them had felt solidarity with the

34:28

aims of the Cubans. And it was

34:30

easy to sympathize with what the Cubans

34:32

were going through, especially since none

34:35

of the men or their families knew

34:37

if they were on the list to be deported. And

34:40

of course, this was why Carol Wachuk

34:42

and the ACLU wanted to see the list

34:44

in the first place to find out

34:46

who was an urgent need of legal aid.

34:48

But the ACL used efforts to obtain

34:51

the list and thus to advocate on their behalf,

34:53

it only made the list more hidden.

34:55

And that's why we wound up suing the state

34:57

department. As we expected, the state

34:59

department ignored our initial Foyer request.

35:02

So we filed a suit in federal court.

35:05

Ten months later, after some predictable and

35:07

not interesting legal ping pong between

35:09

NPR's lawyers and the assistant US attorney

35:11

representing the government. We finally received

35:13

word that the state department would produce an

35:16

initial batch of records. Six

35:18

weeks after that, they made good on that promise.

35:21

So nearly a year after suing the State

35:23

Department, we got an email with the first batch

35:25

of records as an attachment. So we

35:27

hopped on the phone call to open the email

35:29

together. We opened the attachment and

35:31

it was five pages.

35:33

This could not be further off the access of

35:35

what we asked for.

35:36

It's kind of amazing that they waited almost

35:38

two months to send us this. The five

35:40

pages were sloppily redacted records

35:43

related to something vaguely about Cuba

35:45

but nothing at all to do with our story and the

35:47

records we'd asked for in the

35:48

lawsuit. What a bunch of bullshit?

35:51

I mean, I'm not surprised, but panicked.

35:54

That is incredibly

35:55

unhelpful. I gotta say, to

35:58

send to anything and to send this

36:00

feels like a bigger slap

36:02

in the face and just to say nothing at

36:04

all. Anybody in the state who

36:06

saw our request knows that this has nothing to do with

36:08

our request. That's

36:09

the thing that's frustrating. It's like, what do you how do

36:11

you even respond to that? We responded

36:13

to that with a strongly worded letter to the

36:15

assistant US attorney. Pointing out

36:17

that the record state had sent were in no

36:19

way related to our request and reiterating

36:22

that we were interested only in the list of two

36:24

thousand seven hundred and forty six names and

36:26

any records related to the creation of that

36:28

list. Six weeks later, we

36:30

received another email with an attachment from

36:32

the state department. This time, it was

36:34

only one page and it was letter from lawyer

36:37

at state to tell us that the agency had

36:39

processed one hundred, quote, potentially

36:41

responsive records, end quote, but

36:43

that none of those records were ready for release.

36:46

And then six weeks after that, another email,

36:49

another attachment. This one actually

36:51

did contain some relevant documents. Knew

36:53

they're relevant right away because we'd already found

36:55

these exact same documents in the state department's

36:58

so called virtual reading room, an online

37:00

database of records that have already been made

37:02

public through some other four year request. So

37:05

the state department was basically saying, Nomejodis

37:08

and PR. We were never going to

37:10

get them to hand over the list.

37:12

But it turned out we didn't need

37:14

the state department to hand over the list

37:17

because one day a package showed

37:18

up. When I saw it, it

37:21

brought to mind an earlier

37:23

era of of mail. Yeah.

37:26

It brought to mind the word parcel.

37:29

Yeah. Well, it's it is interesting

37:31

to have an anonymous source

37:33

send you

37:34

a package that looks like a package

37:36

that would be a prop. Kennis spy movie. That's

37:39

exactly what this looks like to put out.

37:41

Once we learned that the list might be classified,

37:43

we knew that we couldn't just go around asking

37:45

people for it. Because it could potentially

37:48

be a federal crime to solicit classified

37:50

material, which is, well,

37:52

kind of what we've been doing for years before

37:54

we heard that had been classified. But

37:56

none of that had worked anyway. At least

37:59

until the day, this package showed up,

38:01

leaked to us by a source. We

38:03

weren't certain the package would really contain

38:05

the list, but we decided to air on the side

38:07

of caution and leave our phones and laptops

38:09

out of the room whenever we talked about this package,

38:11

even before it was open. And so there

38:14

we sat in the office with only our recorder

38:16

staring at a package that we thought might

38:18

contain the

38:19

list. Should we open it?

38:21

I

38:21

think we should have.

38:22

Do you mind? Can I do the honors?

38:23

Do you wanna do that?

38:24

Okay.

38:28

Alright. So inside the brown paper

38:30

is a brown paper box, which I think

38:33

is this

38:33

way. The package was wrapped neatly

38:36

in brown paper. Inside that was

38:38

a box that contained a heavy stack of papers.

38:40

On top was the English translation of speech

38:43

Casanova delivered around the time the list was announced.

38:46

And here's the next thing. Approved

38:49

list of persons found ineligible

38:51

for legal admission to the United States.

38:53

As referred to in the communicated agreed

38:56

upon by the United States in Cuba

38:58

December

38:59

fourteen, nineteen eighty four. And

39:02

there are two signatures. One of them looks

39:04

like Michael Kozak. And

39:06

the

39:06

other, I'm assuming, would

39:08

be Allercon.

39:10

Yeah. Swoopy a right there. Ricardo

39:12

Allercon was a lead negotiator for the Cuban

39:15

side. So and it looks

39:17

to be quite a number of pages, which if you had

39:19

a list of two thousand seven hundred and forty six

39:21

names, it might be a lot of pages.

39:23

You feeling right now? Well, it's a little strange.

39:25

little strange. I'm gonna flip the page and see

39:27

names that people for generations

39:29

I feel like you've been trying to get access to.

39:33

There it is.

39:35

Name, a number.

39:36

It's the ailing number. It's INS number. That's right.

39:38

The INS number. And date of

39:40

birth.

39:44

This top page. There's

39:45

an a's.

39:46

It says It's alphabetical. There

39:48

are no numbers, so we will have to count.

39:51

But it

39:54

says two cuba 468

39:57

to twenty two. It appears that there are twenty two

40:00

names on the first page. And then each subsequent

40:02

page has twenty two, twenty four,

40:04

twenty five, twenty five on

40:06

each additional

40:07

page. Yeah.

40:09

You're gonna count the pages. I'm gonna go ahead and

40:11

get a pen and a piece paper so we can

40:13

do some multiplication.

40:14

Remember, we didn't have our phones in the room.

40:16

No phones meant no calculators. Of.

40:19

Okay. So it appears that there are a hundred

40:21

a hundred and nine pages

40:25

plus twenty five.

40:26

Twenty five plus twenty two.

40:31

Are you using new math or old math? This is

40:33

this is nineteen eighties math. Okay.

40:35

That's old math. That's very old math.

40:39

Two times nine is eighteen. Right?

40:41

Yeah. Carry the one. That's

40:44

1222 times

40:46

one. That's to two thousand

40:48

seven hundred and twenty five And what's twenty

40:50

three or twenty

40:52

three?

40:54

Two thousand seven hundred and forty eight. Which

40:56

probably means that on some of these pages, there's

40:58

there's somebody got kind of Or maybe this is the last

41:01

page, have

41:02

goal twenty five? No. Look at that. Look at

41:04

how smart you are. The last page

41:06

has three two minus. So

41:08

that's two thousand seven hundred and forty six.

41:10

That is two thousand seven hundred

41:12

and forty eight minus two. Is

41:15

two thousand. So and there's, again, the

41:17

very last page, and they're underneath the very last

41:19

name is Michael Kozak's signature

41:21

again. This is the list. We have list.

41:23

This is the We're holding the list. Well, what do we do

41:26

with the list now that we have

41:27

it? Let's check some names. Let's check for,

41:29

say, Jorge Marquez

41:30

and Dina.

41:31

Alright. Modena. Jorge Marquez's

41:33

Modena had been the leader of the uprising in

41:35

Talladega. He's the one who had protected

41:37

Linda Galhoun, the one she had called her guardian

41:39

angels. Mark is Jorge,

41:45

Mark is Medina. Here we

41:47

go. Jose Hernandez Mesa.

41:50

Mesa, who'd asked Albemails not to

41:52

send his letter to the mailbox of forgetfulness.

41:55

Oh,

41:55

man.

41:56

Whoa. Nineteen sixty

41:58

four. Wow. As

42:01

getting the list, we saw a surprising number

42:03

of people who were really young in the nineteen eighties.

42:05

What's putting that is wood US officials

42:07

detain a sixteen year old

42:09

immediately. I don't know. So

42:11

one way to find out.

42:13

I mean, how long could a sixteen year old have been

42:15

in prison in Cuba. I know. That's

42:17

so crazy. Can you imagine

42:20

being born in nineteen sixty four in Cuba and

42:22

coming over to the US in nineteen eighty

42:24

on a shrimp boat and being detained

42:26

and finding yourself on the list and being

42:28

repatriated. Who

42:30

the guy that Ham calls goat cheese guy

42:32

was a young woman. That man, Alberto Herrera,

42:35

He was there on the list, and so

42:37

was Pedro Priore Rodriguez, whose

42:39

only crime was getting mugged in Rochester

42:41

and losing his eye. We wanted

42:43

to start using the list to research all the other

42:45

people whose names were on it, but there was

42:47

still that lingering concern about the list

42:50

being classified. Could

42:52

it still be classified? There

42:54

were no classified markings on the copy we received,

42:56

and it was clear that Cuban government had copy

42:59

of this list too. So what kind

43:01

of national security interests could be endangered

43:03

by its release? Without revealing

43:05

to them that the list had been leaked to us, we

43:07

just decided to ask our contact at the state

43:09

department. Is the list classified?

43:12

Getting the answer took a little while, but

43:15

finally, this spokesperson responded, quote,

43:17

The Exclutable List is not classified,

43:20

but it contains personally identifiable information

43:23

likely protected under the Privacy

43:25

Act. It is not a public document,

43:27

end quote. The spokesperson

43:30

was right. The list did contain

43:32

personally identifiable information. And

43:35

we started using that information to confirm

43:37

some of the theories we developed about the list.

43:40

The man who'd been stranded in Fort Shaffee

43:42

before being transferred to the penitentiary in

43:44

Atlanta in nineteen eighty two, they

43:46

were on the list. The names of

43:48

men we'd read about in the basement of the Atlanta

43:50

legal aid society who've been arrested in the

43:52

US for minor drug crimes and bar

43:54

fights, offenses that no reasonable

43:56

person would call a serious crime. They

43:59

were on the list.

44:03

And perhaps the most telling were five names

44:05

we'd seen before. When we'd found their

44:07

tombstones in the graveyard behind the

44:09

Atlanta

44:10

pin. Five of the men who

44:12

had died in the prison before the list had

44:14

ever been announced had somehow found

44:16

their way onto

44:17

it. When the US government

44:19

said it hadn't asked too many questions of the

44:21

names they were adding to the list, they

44:23

weren't kidding. It seems they

44:25

neglected to ask even the most basic

44:27

questions about these men. So

44:33

now that we finally had the list, we had

44:35

to take it and go where

44:38

else to Cuba. To

44:40

finally find the men on the roof.

44:47

Please, Kevin. Welcome. Huma,

44:50

where the local time is eleven seventeen

44:53

approximately AM. That's

44:55

next time. On the final episode

44:58

of White Lies.

45:26

If you wanna hear our final episode right

45:28

now, sign up for embedded plus

45:30

plus dot NPR dot org slash

45:32

embedded. It's a great way to support

45:34

our work, And for our show ends, there's

45:36

a new show coming that we think you'll love.

45:39

It's called taking cover. And if you've

45:41

already signed up for Embedded Plus, you'll get access

45:43

to episodes of that show early and sponsor

45:45

free. So to support NPR's investigative

45:48

journalism, go to plus dot NPR

45:50

dot org slash embedded or find

45:52

the embedded channel in

45:53

Apple. White Lives is reported, written

45:55

and produced by us, and Connor town, O'Neil.

45:58

Liana's Instagram is supervising producer,

46:00

Annie Yetsi, as our associate producer.

46:03

Robert Little edits the show with help from Bruce

46:05

Oster, Keith Woods, Christopher Turpin, and

46:07

Kamala Kelker. Our incredible

46:09

score is composed and performed by Jeff

46:11

t

46:12

Byrd. Emily Bogle, a senior visual

46:14

editor Barbara Van Werkam. As

46:16

our fact checker, Our audio engineer

46:19

is Maggie Luthar. Huge

46:21

thanks to Radiohead for the use of their

46:23

song in the National

46:24

Anthem, courtesy of XL recordings,

46:26

and Warner Chapel Music. Archival

46:28

tape in this episode comes from the American Archive

46:30

of Public Broadcasting, NBC, Seaspan,

46:33

Miami Dade College's Wolfson

46:34

Archives, and The Kona Archive. Special

46:36

thanks to Michael Allen, Tom Burke,

46:39

Patricia Peña, Ayesha Lewis,

46:41

Michelle Kellerman, Robert Beninkasa, Jeff

46:43

Guo, Rachel Sellar, Laura Layner,

46:46

Eduardo Marceli, Rafael Penaúver,

46:48

Ernesto Perez, Willy Allen.

46:51

Juliana Lombardo Larry Orton,

46:53

Duke Austin, Alfredo Villoche, Carl

46:55

Kukuchi, Monica Wilson, Matthew

46:58

Story, Louise Detman, and

47:00

Monica Johnson, and Heather Ash at the Foreign

47:02

Affairs oral History Collection at the Association

47:05

for Diplomatic Studies and

47:06

Training. We are grateful for the work of

47:08

Micah Ratner in NPR's legal team. Especially

47:10

in this episode. And Tony Cavin, NPR's

47:12

Standards and Practices's Editor. Our project

47:15

manager is Margaret Price. Irene Naguchi

47:17

is the executive producer of NPR's Storytelling

47:19

unit. And Anja Gruntman is NPR's Senior

47:21

Vice President for Programming and Audience Development.

48:53

This message comes from NPR sponsor

48:55

NerdWallet. Looking to make a smart financial

48:58

decision, compare and find the top

49:00

credit cards savings accounts and

49:02

more at nerdwallet dot com. Nerdwallet,

49:04

the smartest decision for all your

49:07

financial decisions.