The Mariel boatlift led 60,000 Cuban immigrants to settle in Miami. Card (1990) found that this wave of immigration devastated the Miami labor market by depressing the wages and raising the unemployment rate for roughly a decade . drove down the wages of skilled native workers in Miami for six years. increased the unemployment rate of black workers in Miami but any other effect were minor lowered wages and raised the unemployment rate in Miami no more than in comparable cities within a few years