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Social tension reached a peak on August 5, 1994, when several hundred (by some estimates more than a thousand) people rioted in a seafront Havana district. Videotape footage of the event showed rioters looting shops, battling police, and shouting anti-government slogans. This was the first major civil disturbance to take place in Havana since the consolidation of the regime in the early 1960s. Although the police regained control of the situation in a matter of hours, Cuban officials later admitted that they were badly shaken by the disturbance. Appearing on state-run Cuban television, Fidel Castro declared that Cuba would no longer prevent "illegal" departures from the island. During the next several weeks, tens of thousands of people congregated on the northwestern coast of Cuba seeking opportunities to emigrate from the island by sea. During August and early September, the United States Coast Guard intercepted more than 30,000 people in the Florida Straits attempting to flee Cuba on homemade rafts. A large number of empty rafts were also found at sea, suggesting that several hundred (by some estimates several thousand) people may have drowned while traveling on unseaworthy vessels.

Responding to the uncontrolled mass exodus and seeking to curb unsafe departures by raft, on August 19 the Clinton administration announced that Cubans intercepted at sea would no longer be granted automatic political asylum in the United States, but would instead be given safe haven at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The flow of refugees continued unabated until September 9, 1994, when the Cuban and United States governments reached a migratory agreement to stem the exodus. In the September 9 agreement, Cuba agreed to use mainly "persuasive" means to prevent unsafe departures in exchange for United States approval of 20,000 visas annually to legal Cuban "migrants" (despite Cuba's commitment to employ nonviolent means to avoid departures, "attempted illegal departure" remains a felony carrying a two- to six-year prison sentence). The United States in turn would adopt a "wet feet vs. dry feet" policy toward Cuban refugees. Hereafter, Cuban refugees who make it to U.S. shores would be released to family and relatives in the United States, whereas those intercepted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard would be immediately returned to Cuba unless a very strong claim for political asylum could be made.

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