The chapter describes how more Cubans came to the United States in 1980 without authorization than in any previous year, unleashing what became known as the Mariel crisis, named for the Cuban port from where they came. The chapter describes how President Carter responded by granting the visa-less Cubans unique entry rights and resettlement benefit, to address his concern with reelection later that year. The granting of new entitlements to Cubans became driven by domestic and not merely Cold War politics. Earlier Cuban immigrants, beneficiaries of a unique path to citizenship, had votes to deliver in the key state of Florida. Accustomed to special entitlements, the earlier Cubans immigrants pressed President Carter to privilege yet more Cubans: at great economic, social, and political costs. Committed to human rights, President Carter concomitantly broke with the racist practices of his presidential predecessors who repatriated, detained, and deported Haitians; instead, he granted unauthorized Haitian immigrants the same entitlements as Mariel Cubans, as “Entrants: Status Pending,” a specially created immigration category to admit them, while acknowledging them not to be refugees, with long-term rights.