The documents reveal that the U.S. government had information indicating that Juan Miguel Gonzalez (Elian’s father) had sought to leave Cuba for the United States. They also reveals the U.S. government was aware that Juan Miguel wanted Elian to stay in the U.S. and that the father was being coerced by the Castro regime.
Here is the story as reported today by AP:
Associated Press | 4-10-02 | ADRIAN SAINZ
Posted on 4/10/02 11:52 AM Eastern by Oldeconomybuyer
A handwritten notation at the bottom of an INS memo dated Dec. 29, 1999, said that Doris Meissner, then the INS commissioner, ordered the memo destroyed the very next day.
A copy of the memo survived and was made public Wednesday by Washington-based Judicial Watch. It discussed the possibility that Elian's father at one time had sought a visa to move to the United States.
It also discussed allegations that the Cuban government had been coercing the father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez.
If coercion could be shown, the roughly drafted e-mail memo said, INS could "potentially accept the child's asylum's application and advise that there is no prohibition on age to child filing application. As such PA should proceed."
"PA" apparently refers to "political asylum."
The memo, written by INS attorney Rebeca Sanchez Roig, summarized a conference call on the Elian case involving several INS employees, including Meissner.
The handwritten notation on a printout of the e-mail memo, added by Roig some point after the memo was written, said Meissner ordered the destruction of all copies of the memo through another INS official.
It also said Meissner ordered that no more discussions related to Elian's case be put in writing.
Elian was rescued at sea off Florida in November 1999 after his mother and most of the other passengers traveling illegally from Cuba to the United States died when their boat capsized.
The boy was temporarily placed with relatives in Miami who, backed by other Cuban exiles, fought to keep the child in the United States.
The federal government said Elian should be reunited with his father in Cuba.
An INS spokeswoman in Miami, Patricia Mancha, said she could not immediately comment on the memo.
Meissner, reached at her home in the Washington area, said she could not comment because she was not aware of the details of the allegations.
Judicial Watch attorneys said the copy of the memo was provided to them this week by INS lawyer Diana Alvarez.
It was cited Tuesday at a civil service hearing on INS special agent Ricardo Ramirez's claims of threats, harassment and anti-Cuban-American sentiment in the INS Miami office at the time of Elian's stay in the United States.
In March, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit in which Ramirez claimed he was harassed for reporting alleged anti-Cuban bias in the agency after the Elian case.
Putting aside the fact that Doris could be in big trouble for trying to destroy this memo, where does it say that they HAD information that he had tried to defect before he got here, or that he wanted to stay.
***Does anybody see ANY proof of what JW is claiming?
In March, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit in which Ramirez claimed he was harassed for reporting alleged anti-Cuban bias in the agency after the Elian case.
Another one down!
Posted on Wed, Apr. 10, 2002
INS weighed asylum for Elián
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@herald.com
In the days before the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service decided to return Elián González to his father, senior INS officials discussed granting asylum to the boy if they could show that the Cuban government had coerced the father into demanding the child's return, according to an internal INS memo shown to The Herald Tuesday.
The Dec. 29, 1999, memo, cited on the first day of a federal employee grievance proceeding in Miami, also noted that some INS officials believed Elián's father -- Juan Miguel González -- at one time sought an immigrant visa to the United States and that his calls to his relatives in Little Havana might have been monitored by the Cuban government. It's the first time this memo has surfaced since the Elián saga began on Thanksgiving Day 1999.
Hand-scrawled notes at the bottom of the two-page memo said then-INS Commissioner Doris Meissner ordered the destruction of the memo one day after it was written when she learned of its existence. According to the notes, Meissner ordered that no more discussions related to Elián be committed to writing. The notes were signed by Rebeca Sánchez-Roig, an INS attorney at the time and author of the memo.
Somehow a copy of the memo, in the form of an e-mail, survived and on Tuesday was turned over to the U. S. Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent, quasi-judicial agency that serves as an arbitration panel for federal employee grievances against their agencies.
The commission began proceedings Tuesday on claims by INS agent Rick Ramírez who said that the agency is retaliating against him for claiming that INS officials harbored anti-Cuban feelings. Ramírez claimed that atmosphere contributed to ''excessive force'' in the April 2000 raid in which Elián was taken from the Little Havana home of his U.S. relatives and reunited with his father.
Ramírez is seeking a transfer to another INS district, as well as a finding by the board that the agency retaliated against him. A federal judge in Miami dismissed Ramírez's lawsuit against INS last month. Ramírez said he would appeal.
Elián, who was 6 at the time, arrived in the United States on Thanksgiving Day 1999 on a makeshift boat, the sole survivor of a risky voyage that killed his mother. Her death set the stage for an international custody battle.
Meissner could not be reached for comment. But on Jan. 5, 2000, seven days after the Sánchez-Roig memo was written, Meissner announced her decision to return Elián to his father, concluding that the father was sincere in his wish to have his son back.
Rodney Germain, an INS spokesman in Miami, said his agency will withhold comment pending completion of the proceedings.
Richard Vitaris, the judge presiding over the proceedings at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Miami, refused to admit the memo into evidence on the ground it was not ''relevant'' to Ramírez's allegations because it was written prior to the raid.
But Ramírez's attorney, Larry Klayman of the conservative legal watchdog group Judicial Watch, said the memo showed that some INS officials thought Elián deserved asylum since Cuba might have pressured his father.
The memo was turned over to the board by Diana Alvarez, an INS attorney who testified on Ramírez's behalf.
The memo by Sánchez-Roig, whom Alvarez identified as a fellow INS employee, summarized a conference call on the Elián case involving several senior INS employees including Meissner.
The paragraph on whether Elián's father sought a visa to the United States suggested that he had applied for the visa in an annual lottery for Cuban nationals in Havana. U.S. officials have maintained they could not find any record of Juan González's request.
The memo said: ``It appears that the father had made an application (potentially the lottery) to depart Cuba.''
On whether Elián deserved asylum, the memo said if coercion of Elián's father could be shown INS could ``potentially accept the child's asylum's application and advise that there is no prohibition on age to child filing application. As such PA should proceed.''
PA appears to have been a reference to political asylum.
I thought this was about Agent Rick Ramirez but he seems to have fallen out of the "ethical Washington Watchdogs" view.