A U.S. Marine helps a child off of a Cuban refugee boat during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Fernando Yovera AP Photo In 1980, then-President Jimmy Carter welcomed 125,000 Cuban refugees to the United ...

Robert Stamie Messer was born in a small mill house to the late Strawder Messer and Anna Pearl Martin Messer on September 17, 1935. Robert graduated from Gastonia High School, received a degree from ...

Caught off guard by Fidel Castro’s opening of the port of Mariel — and at times hesitant to admit unauthorized boatloads of refugees — President Carter nevertheless accepted the Cubans who ...