News In Brief

Cubans from 1980 boatlift now able to seek citizenship

Cubans who fled their communist homeland in the 1980 Mariel boatlift could begin applying for permanent US residency yesterday, possibly opening the door for more than 300,000 relatives still on the island to follow. Until now, about 125,000 refugees have lived in legal limbo, barred from filing for citizenship under the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 because Congress had hoped to pass new immigration laws. The Cuban Adjustment Act allows Cubans who left their Caribbean island nation after the 1959 communist revolution to seek US citizenship in time.