Four months later, accounts that over 300,000 people had left Puerto Rico and that the flow may reach 470,000 by 2019, triggered a wave of other panics beyond the island (Brinkman 2018). In Florida, the arrival of Puerto Ricans—considered the largest influx in its history—prompted the governor to request that the state be declared a disaster area. Although Puerto Ricans are US citizens, several journalists began to call the flow “the Puerto Rican Mariel,” referring to the 1980 boatlift that brought 125,000 people from the Cuban port of Mariel to south Florida in only six months (Padillo 2017). In New York, some community activists expressed apprehension that this migration would lead to “the end” of Puerto Ricans, first removing them from the island and later culturally “assimilating” them to the United States (Falcón 2017).