The Nation : U.S. Deports 4 More Cuban Refugees

The Justice Department returned four more Cuban refugees to their homeland for committing crimes after arriving in the United States in the 1980 Mariel boat lift. Five other Cubans were flown back to the island on Dec. 2, after the Supreme Court voted 8 to 1 to reject an emergency request to block their deportations and allowed the resumption of a repatriation program suspended since 1985. In 1987, announcement of a U.S.-Cuban accord resuming the deportions triggered fiery riots at federal prisons in Atlanta and Oakdale, La. The latest four detainees were taken by bus from the federal correctional institution at Talledega, Ala., to Birmingham, Ala., where they were put aboard a U.S. Marshals Service plane and flown to Havana.