Freedom Flights (known in Spanish as Los vuelos de la libertad) transported Cubans to Miami twice daily, five times per week from 1965 to 1973.

"[1][4][5] The Freedom Flights were an important and unusual chapter of cooperation in the history of Cuban-American foreign relations, which is otherwise characterized by mutual distrust.

Those factors combined to create in Cuba an atmosphere that was, according to scholar Aviva Chomsky, "ripe for revolution," which Castro exploited to gain power.

As the civil rights movement gained momentum in the United States, laws that discriminated based on an individual's ethnicity or race began to be repealed.

[8][9] After the passing of the bill President Lyndon B. Johnson declared in a speech in front of the Statue of Liberty that Cubans and all others who want asylum should be given a chance to get it.

He would state, "I declare this afternoon to the people of Cuba that those who seek refuge here in America will find it.... Our tradition as an asylum for the oppressed is going to be upheld.

"[10] When Castro's policies began to take shape, a large wave of disillusioned immigrants crashed on South Florida's beaches.

[1] A chaotic episode of this wave of immigration, the Camarioca boatlifts in 1965, led to unusual cooperation between the Cuban and American governments, the enactment of the Freedom Flights program.

[1] The chaotic scene of thousands of boats dangerously attempting to traverse the Florida Straits and enter the safety of American soil illegally prompted action by the United States, whose Coast Guard found itself overwhelmed.

[5] By facilitating a mass exodus from Cuba, the Cuban Adjustment Act effectively created a "brain drain" of human capital that destabilized the Castro regime, undermined the legitimacy of an oppressive government, and fostered anticommunist public sentiment that would garner support for massive Cold War spending programs.

[5] The Senate Report in the Act's legislative history notes, "the talents and skills of many of the refugees, particularly in the professional field... will be put to use in the national interest".

[5] For its part, the Cuban government was receptive to establishing a safe and orderly program, as the sight of thousands of citizens risking their lives to leave the country reflected poorly on the Castro administration.

María Rodríguez recounts the emotional story of first seeing the country: "I cried quietly while kissing the [American] flag and said a prayer.... For the first time in my life, I felt free.

[12] Refugees of the Freedom Flight era were more likely to be women or elderly people than working age men because of emigration restrictions.

[9] Although the Castro government initially allowed citizens to leave, it would eventually discourage emigration by harassing and humiliating Cubans who signed up for the program.

[13] Those on the waitlist were fired from their jobs, deemed "enemies of the state," and hassled by members of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs).

[15] Despite the intense hardship that the Castro government threatened and delivered, the Freedom Flights program remained popular, and long waiting lists forced Cuban citizens to seek other methods of emigration.

Freedom Flight immigrant Orlando Torres signed up in 1965, at the beginning of the program, but needed to wait two years to leave.

[1] The effects also caused Castro to suspend the program from May to December 1972, and on April 6, 1973, the last Freedom Flight touched down at Miami International Airport.

[4] The immigrants affectionately called the Freedom Tower "el refugio" ("the refuge") and temporarily lived in "Casas de la libertad" ("Houses of Liberty") set up at Miami International Airport.

[1] Without an established Cuban-American base, the early immigrants were thrust into a discriminatory culture with a foreign language, impeding their development.

This growing demographic trend caused resentful white Americans to pick Fort Lauderdale as their new home, a city with a 4% Hispanic population in 1980.