While the Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is well-known for its infamous prison camp, few people are aware of its prior use as an immigrant detention center for Haitian and Cuban refugees. Beginning in August 1994, the United States government declared that thousands of Cubans who had launched themselves into the Florida Straits on rickety rafts were "illegal refugees" and sent them to join over fifteen thousand Haitians already being held on Guantanamo after fleeing a violent coup in Haiti.

Escape to Miami recounts the gripping stories of the rafters who were detained in Guantanamo...