The Cubans who embarked en masse for the U.S. after 1980 were initially welcomed. However, in the wake of media-fueled rumors that Castro was using the exodus to empty prisons, a select group was detained by the INS on the basis of its "hardened" appearance. Mark S. Hamm gives an in-depth, hard-hitting analysis of the 1987 Oakdale and Atlanta prison riots, during which several thousand Cubans rebelled after seven years of detention by the INS without due process.