[dirtboy]

but to me it's enough that Juan Miguel asked for his boy back. To contermplate whether this was his idea or Castro's is ceratinly noble in intent but goes beyond our responsibility - Again, when your boy is held in another country, I would say that noone need know your reasons for asking for your boy back

What if someone lived in the former East Germany - and risked their life to get their son to freedom. And then the Stasi comes to their door and says to use the West German legal system to get him back or else all his relatives would go to prison. If you were an immigration judge in West Germany, wouldn't you consider that relevant towards the child's return? Or would you just rubber-stamp it without an investigation?

That is the point of allowing any alien to apply for asylum - to let the courts sort such matters out. If this were a simple domestic custody issue, we wouldn't be having this discussion. The fact that Juan was never free to travel around the country without Castro's goons by him speaks volumes - if Juan could have gone to a court on his own free will and spoken his intentions, then I would have a lot less of a problem with the end result. But we will never know, because Reno and Clinton short-circuited due process to appease Castro. Clinton's actions had NOTHING to do with Elian, and everything to do with Clinton's personal political agenda, whatever that was.

[thusevertotyrants]

It is not for me or any judge to decide that a person's politics or country of origin negate their rights of parenthood. To me, until such time as a parent has committed a crime, their right of parenthood is SACRED, not to be violated, even if done so in the name of ending political repression.