Who could forget the picture of little Elian Gonzalez, that gun pointed in his direction, and the fear on his face? It’s ugly. I remember the day federal agents stormed the house of Elian’s relatives in Miami. April 22 was the fifth anniversary.
I was a brand new conservative at that time, but I parted ways with other conservatives on this issue. They believed the child should remain in the United States and receive an asylum hearing. I believed the boy’s relatives had no right to make decisions for him and should return him to his father immediately. If a father wants to raise his child in Castro’s Cuba, neither the United States nor the child’s distant relatives had any say in the matter.
I was firmly behind the Clinton adminstration on this one.
I strongly support parental rights, and unless there’s evidence that a child is being abused or some other criminal act has occured, the parents’ rights trump concerns about communism. When O.J. Simpson was found “Not Guilty” in his double murder trial, Nicole Brown’s parents properly, although begrudgingly, relinquished his children, even though they and I knew he killed their mother.
There was a lot of discussion about Elian’s mother. She clearly took the boy without his father’s consent, following her boyfriend on the dangerous journey. Whatever her motives were, they died with her. Out of a group of 14 people fleeing Cuba on a makeshift boat, only Elian and three others survived. For seven months, Elian’s relatives in Miami refused to return him to his father, acting as de facto guardians. Read about the legal battle at U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services and Online NewsHour.
I grew weary of the whole thing, and my frustration mounted each day as I watched Elian’s relatives milk the publicity for all it was worth, especially his cousin, Marisleysis and her fainting spells. After the mess was over, the Miami relatives slipped back into the obscurity from which they’d emerged. Thank goodness.
