The 1980’s began quite chaotically for the city of Miami. The city witnessed a 4-day racial riots after 4 white police officers who had beaten to death Arthur McDuffie (a young black American) in May 1980 were acquitted. The city in four days witnessed flames, crime, and murder leaving 18 people dead. This was the beginning of race riots throughout the 1980’s especially on police brutality against the black people (Mandy, 2015) . This was followed by the Mariel Boatlift. 150,000 Cuban nationals arrived at shores of Miami as refugees seeking asylum in the already tense city. This would become the largest civilian transportation in history. Most of the refugees were poor without any significant material possessions. Most had either been released from prison or from mental health facilities and were on board to make a trip- which landed then in Miami. This immigration catalyzed a series of events in the city from political to economic and demographic changes (McKnight, 2018) .
Receiving 150,000 poor civilians who most needed help rather than bringing in any resources, was a living nightmare to the then state government. For the first few months during settlement, they lived in camps relying on relief food but would later receive loans to start their own businesses and grow in Miami. This immigration also forced the majority of the Non-Hispanic whites (of the middle class) out of the city (the white flight) and by the early 1990s formerly a majority in the city the Non-Hispanic whites were just 10% of the city’s population. By 1985 Miami had its first Cuban mayor in Xavier Suarez. There was an evident turn of events politically and the Cuban immigrants would continue ruling the city for a very long time. During this period, most of the middle-level businesses in Miami were also owned by Cubans. Then began the drug wars, cocaine started streaming in through Miami (McKnight, 2018) .
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Drugs had been flowing through Miami for years before both the federal government and the state government would take note of it as a problem. It all began in 1979 after the Dadeland mall shooting where one Colombian drug lord was shot dead together with his bodyguard at a liquor shop. This was a period shortly after the discovery of smokable cocaine also known as -crack which was selling extremely well in the streets of Miami. A police officer at the Dadeland shooting renamed the arsonists the “cocaine cowboys” in a documentary on the shooting. The daylight shooting was inspired by the efforts of Pablo Escobar’s Medellin cartel to consolidate the Miami drug market. This opened the Miami vices to the rest of the Americans and attention was drawn to the city by everyone including the federal government. At this point in time, it was estimated that 705 of all cocaine and marijuana in the United States passed through south Florida to the rest of the states and were majorly controlled by the Colombian cartels (Miami Herald Archives, 2019) .
Several successive murders followed in the territorial battle for Miami over the 1980s. In 1981 alone the drug wars had claimed about 311 individuals compared to about to around 234 in 1980 and about 174 in 1979. Murders associated with drug trafficking and cartel wars accounted for approximately 50% of all murder cases in Miami. Dade County was a hot spot for such murders and Miami was branded the drug capital of the world. These individuals either died of machine-gun fire or were publicly executed. Bodies were found stashed in car trunks after brutal torture and executions, others were collected near hospitals and the body trail never seemed to end. The wars between Colombian cartels and other traffickers grew but the Colombians were too brutal for them to handle. Families were kidnapped and murdered and by 1982, the Medellin cartel had taken over Miami. The numbers kept increasing daily and the Miami streets continued growing more dangerous. At least each flight to Colombia each day had at least a few millions of dollars in cash and each flight back had a few kilograms of cocaine. The wars that occurred in Colombia also occurred in Miami. These would happen for years until the collapse of the Medellin cartel and the dominance of the Cali cartel (Cullen, 2017) .
Money was also flowing and corruption was rampant at the time. Miami was growing at a high rate as it attracted the Narco moguls to its shores. The banking and real estate industries grew rapidly. The drug industry employed close to 2500 individuals in baking, real estate investors sold several houses to the traffickers at hefty prices and more than a third of such deals were transacted in cash. Miami was streaming with cash, the tourism industry was growing. Most of the banks subsidiary to the Miami Continental Bank was owned by Latin Americans and were the avenues for money laundering. The federal reserved branch in charge of Miami had recorded over $5 billion in surplus which was greater than 11 other reserve branches. In fact, most of the Federal Reserve branches were running ion deficits but most of the money that was developing Miami was also killing it. Drug money had become blood money (Posner, 2009) .
The police department in Miami was also faced with corruption, the larger chunk of the police department was in the cartels' payrolls. Cocaine was so valued to an extent it would be used to buy goods and services. The anti-narcotics war in Miami began in 1980 when $1.2 million in cash was seized in a plane to Colombia and would continue through to the 1990s (Posner, 2009) . In 1982, cocaine worth $ 100 million was seized at the Miami international airport in the hangar. This forced the federal government to take action and create a task force specific to Florida. The cartels, however, grew creative day by day and innovative each time, they always designed new methods to transport both the money and the cocaine and the drug war never stopped in the 1980’s. it was cartels versus cartels and the cartels versus the drug enforcement agencies.
The influx of Cuban immigrants had developed into a problem both in Miami and the federal government. The Mariel Boatlift was not the last of the Cubans to enter Florida, more came streaming in and later in 1994 the Clinton government changed policy that controlled admission of Cubans into America. The Mariel immigrants improved the Miami unskilled labor market by 7% and propelled economic development. Manufacturing and processing companies that required unskilled labor to operate, relied majorly on the Cuban immigrants. The wages in the labor market did not change as was the concern of several people. They, however, put much pressure on the city’s economic resources (Card, 1990) .
The Mariel boatlift carried mostly ex-prisoners and individuals with psychiatric history. Coming to America without jobs and money and based on a chaotic background, the Mariel Cubans caused more law and order troubles. The rates of felony increased daily besides the drug wars. Correctional facilities in florid and neighboring states recorded the majority of felony offenders to be of the Mariel Immigration. The city recorded high crime rates and was forced to hire more police officers to deal with crime problems. Three years into the Cuban immigration, Dade county had recruited over 400 cadets into the police force. These were not very qualified but were hired to cover for the high crime rates. At the same time at least 105 of the police officers were fired on the basis of corruption and relations to drug trafficking (Nordheimer, 1986) . By 1985, the police department in Miami was already getting overwhelmed. It was estimated that at least 25 Cubans were deported monthly due to crimes committed on United States soil and this was majorly in Florida and California (NYTimes, 1985) .
References
Card, D. (1990). The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market. Industrial And Labor Relations Review , 43 (2), 245. doi: 10.2307/2523702
Cullen, T. (2017). How the Cocaine Cowboys built a drug empire that helped inspire ‘Miami Vice’. Retrieved 1 December 2019, from https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cocaine-cowboys-built-empire-inspired-miami-vice-article-1.3052383
Mandy, B. (2015). Miami Black History: 1980s to 1990s - The New Tropic. Retrieved 1 December 2019, from https://thenewtropic.com/miami-black-history-1980s-1990s/
McKnight, R. (2018). The impact of the Mariel Boatlift still resonates in Florida after 38 years. Retrieved 1 December 2019, from https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article209282994.html
Miami Herald Archives. (2019). Bullets once flew at Dadeland Mall in a deadly shootout. The Cocaine Cowboys were here Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/kendall/article231644003.html#storylink=cpy. Retrieved 1 December 2019, from https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/kendall/article231644003.html
Nordheimer, J. (1986). POLICE CORRUPTION PLAGUING FLORIDA. Retrieved 1 December 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/03/us/police-corruption-plaguing-florida.html
NYTimes. (1985). CUBAN REFUGEE CRIME TROUBLES POLICE ACROSS U. S. Retrieved 1 December 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/31/us/cuban-refugee-crime-troubles-police-across-u-s.html
Posner, G. (2009). Cocaine Cowboys. Retrieved 1 December 2019, from https://www.thedailybeast.com/cocaine-cowboys
