Posted on 03/29/2002 11:36:56 AM PST by laureldrive
April 24, 2000
Clinton Regime Outdoes Itself by Snatching Elian Gonzalez
by Deroy Murdock
Deroy Murdock is a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and a policy advisor to the Cato Institute.
Saturday's Nacht-und-Nebel-style seizure of Elian Gonzalez by armed U.S. agents resembled Munich 1940 more than Miami 2000. The abuses of power and excessive force in this revolting episode epitomize a federal police state that has goose-stepped from Ruby Ridge to Waco and now to Little Havana.
At 5:14 a.m. -- while attorneys for the young Cuban refugee negotiated his status with Justice Department officials -- eight Immigration and Naturalization Service officers used a battering ram to knock down the front door of Elian's great uncle, Lazaro. Wielding machine guns, the body-armor-clad agents knocked over a picture of Jesus Christ and a statue of the Virgin Mary on Easter Eve. They then kicked down another door inside the Gonzalez home.
According to Elian's cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, federal agents held her at gun point while one screamed, "Give me the f - - - ing boy or we'll shoot you." An NBC cameraman said federal gunmen kicked him in the stomach, hit his sound man with a rifle butt and yelled, "Don't move or we'll shoot."
A Border Patrol agent in a helmet and goggles soon pointed his assault rifle at Elian and the man who shielded him in his arms -- Donato Dalrymple, one of the fishermen who rescued him from the Atlantic Ocean last Thanksgiving. As Elian hollered, "Help me! Help me!", he was whisked away in a white van driven by yet another federale whose face was hidden in a ski mask. Onlookers, meanwhile, were kept at bay with pepper spray.
This nauseating episode -- captured by TV cameras and Alan Diaz, an intrepid Associated Press photographer -- looked more like a kidnapping than an official act of the United States government. Then again, very little about this case has been kosher.
This raid supposedly was triggered after Attorney General Janet Reno decided that talks with the Gonzalez family had collapsed. Attorneys for the Gonzalezes say they spoke by phone with Reno and her subordinates late into the night and faxed proposals back and forth to Justice headquarters in Washington.
"For Janet Reno to say that negotiations had broken down at the time of the raid was an utter, utter lie," Barbara Lagoa, one of Elian's attorneys, told Fox News Channel.
The president previously urged the Gonzalezes to follow the rule of law -- and who better than Bill Clinton could make such an admonition? Nonetheless, it appears that federal officials trampled the rule of law when they burst into Lazaro Gonzalez's private property with a dubious search warrant. As Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe wrote in the April 25 New York Times, "it was not a warrant to seize the child. Elian was not lost, and it is a semantic sleight of hand to compare his forcible removal to the seizure of evidence, which is what a search warrant is for." Tribe, a veteran liberal, added: "Ms. Reno's decision to take the law as well as the child into her own hands seems worse than a political blunder. Even if well intended, her decision strikes at the heart of constitutional government and shakes the safeguards of liberty."
Furthermore, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled April 20 that Elian Gonzalez himself may have the right to seek political asylum in the United States, even against his father's wishes. The decision that Elian is entitled to a day in court -- specifically a May 11 INS asylum appeal hearing -- argues against his immediate transfer to his father. Juan Miguel Gonzalez is currently influenced, if not thoroughly controlled, by Cuban functionaries. His parents are reportedly in a Cuban government compound, perhaps held as collateral until their son returns to Fidel Castro's "workers' paradise." Juan Miguel has spent nearly his entire sojourn in America in the home of a senior Cuban diplomat. Imagine a North Korean boy who had escaped to Seoul awaiting a court hearing in the "neutral" territory of an apartment occupied by the Pyongyang regime's attache.
The Circuit Court also chastised the Clinton Administration for ignoring Elian's desires. "According to the record, plaintiff - although a young child - has expressed a wish that he not be returned to Cuba," the three-judge panel wrote.
"It appears that never have INS officials attempted to interview plaintiff about his wishes.
"It is not clear that the INS, in finding plaintiff's father to be the only proper representative, considered all of the relevant factors -- particularly the child's separate and independent interests in seeking asylum."
Fox News analyst Dick Morris joked that Hillary Clinton's next book will be called "It Takes a SWAT Team." The thuggishness of the Clinton Administration, reputedly the best friends a child could have, likely will scar Elian for years. Just last April 17, the Justice Department released a letter from Dr. Irwin Redlener claiming that "Elian Gonzalez is now in a state of imminent danger to his physical and emotional well-being in a home that I consider to be psychologically abusive." Perhaps the Clintons and Janet Reno believed Elian would find federal gun muzzles psychologically soothing. As Reno helpfully explained: "Elian Gonzalez is a child who needs to be cherished."
Adding further to all this intrigue is the fact that Dr. Redlener is a pediatrician, not a psychologist. As such, he is as qualified to comment on Elian's state of mind as a psychologist is to treat him for chicken pox. Beyond that, Dr. Redlener never even spoke with Elian. Unless Dr. Redlener is clairvoyant, he seems entirely unable to evaluate Elian's psyche. Redlener, it transpires, also served on Hillary Clinton's health care task force in 1993 and chaired the 1992 Clinton-Gore National Health Leadership Council. He is little more than an Administration flack with a stethoscope.
Add to this that Juan Miguel Gonzalez is represented by President Clinton's top-dollar impeachment attorney, Greg Craig. Nothing about the Elian Gonzalez case is as it seems. An adorable six-year-old boy is the latest victim of a lawless regime seemingly bent on serving the political wishes of Fidel Castro, even at gunpoint. So it goes these days in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Why in the world do liberals love Castro so? Even as we speak, Jimmy Carter is busy making his pilgrimage to kiss the Great Man's toe. I've never understood it.
But getting back to Elian, I think the famous photo should be printed up and posted everywhere Jackboot Reno is likely to show up. Anybody know if she's coming to Gainesville any time soon?
Clinton's INS reversed their own written guidelines which state that State Family Courts determine who has custody of a child in situations such as Elian's.
The USSC ruled that the Executive branch could reverse its own written regulations on immigrant custody issues, which the INS had done when they seized Elian in the raid.
Juan Miguel was then appointed to be Elian's spokesman and he declined to have an immigration hearing.
One more thing to remember is that Juan Miguel was never out of the control of Castro's security men in the US. We have to trust the word of Reno and Castro that his wishes were being followed.
Actually and unfortunately, AnnaZ, the fact that we haven't seen Elian being photographed by Cuban television cameras is only because the American presstitutes have decided not to print them. I have read articles in the Spanish language "El Nuevo Herald" (Knight Ridder Miami newspaper) as recently as last month I think, about Elian being paraded around with Castro for some communist holiday. Many Miami newspapers and television stations monitor Cuban tv and they confirm that Castro has been exploiting Elian for his commie-political agenda all along. Another bit of sad information I read in the Miami Herald last week was that a federal judge threw out the case of INS whistleblower (was Ramirez his name?) who dared to tell the truth about INS hatred of Elian.
The effort that the media/RATs put into this all out bltz was a foreshadowing of the effort to steal the Election of 2000 in Florida.
Elian's Miami relatives stood up the full force of the Clinton machine and thereby put themselves in considerable danger.
Hard for me to understand how anyone on this forum can be snide about a family like that.
You mean obtain a bogus warrant? Stomp of at least three amendments to the constitution? "Arrest" people without reading them their rights, or allowing them access to an attorney?
Allow agents of a foreign (and hostile) regime to conduct communist indoctrination classes on US soil, on real state paid for with taxpayer money?
And you call yourself a conservative?
You get paid to enforce our laws?
No wonder we're in the shits.
Why Reno attempted to get a warrant is beyond me. INS officers do not need a warrant to enter a house and apprehend an illegal alien.
Stomp of at least three amendments to the constitution?
Illegal aliens are not protected under the Constitution.
"Arrest" people without reading them their rights,
Illegal aliens are detained not arrested and therefore they do not get Marandized.
, or allowing them access to an attorney?
As for legal counsel, I'm sure the Government provided the best the best (that was sarcasm by the way).
Allow agents of a foreign (and hostile) regime to conduct communist indoctrination classes on US soil, on real state paid for with taxpayer money?
Can't comment on that, I was not there.
And you call yourself a conservative?
Why yes I do.
You get paid to enforce our laws?
Right again.
No wonder we're in the shits.
If your in the shits, it not because of me.
On the point of Elian being an ilegal immigrant-- I'll defer to others familiar with immigration law, but my understandng is that Elian's status was undetermined at the time of his seizure by the INS.
I infer from he 11th Circuit Court's ruling that he was entitled to due process before he could be declared an illegal immigrant.
Congressman Billybob-- Any comments on the legal points raised by Marine Inspector?
Let's say a suspected bank robber was hiding out in someone's home. Are the police required to get a warrant to enter that home and arrest him? My understanding is that they are not required to do so.
Before entering the home, however, I think that they would be required to have a warrant to arrest the suspect, unless they were in active pursuit after the robbery.
In Elian's case, they were not there to arrest him. They were there to transfer him to the custody of his biological Cuban father until his immigration status could be settled in court.
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