Its been just over 10 years since Reno ordered Elian reunited with his Dad...lots of juicy angles here..government intervention, illegal immigration and of course, Castro..so was the US right to send him back?


http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/05/elian-gonzalez-shown-cuba-youth-meeting/


Now 16, Elian Gonzalez Shown at Cuba Youth Meeting

AP
HAVANA

Cuba has released photos of one-time exile cause celebre Elian Gonzalez wearing an olive-green military school uniform and attending a Young Communist Union congress.

April 4: Elian Gonzalez holds a Cuban flag during the UJC, Union of Young Communists, congress in Havana.
Cuba has released photos of one-time exile cause celebre Elian Gonzalez wearing an olive-green military school uniform and attending a Young Communist Union congress.

Gonzalez, now 16 with closely cropped black hair, is shown serious-faced with fellow youth delegates during last weekend's congress at a sprawling and drab convention center in western Havana. The images were posted Monday on Cuban government Web sites, then widely picked up by electronic, state-controlled media.

When he was 5, Elian was found floating off the coast of Florida in an inner tube after his mother and others fleeing Cuba drowned trying to reach the U.S. Elian's father, who was separated from his mother, had remained in Cuba.

U.S. immigration officials ruled the boy should return to Cuba over the objections of his Miami relatives and other Cuban exiles, creating a national furor that caused even presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore to weigh in on the matter.

His relatives refused to give him up. Federal agents raided the Little Havana home of his uncle with guns drawn 10 years ago this month and seized the boy from a closet to return him to his father.

Elian was celebrated as a hero in Cuba upon his return and his father, restaurant employee Juan Miguel Gonzalez, was elected to parliament –– a seat he retains today.

Cuba usually marks Gonzalez's birthday every Dec. 7 with parades and other local events, but such activities are not open to foreign reporters.

Gonzalez formally joined the Young Communist Union in 2008, making headlines across Cuba.

The green uniform with red shoulder patches he is seen wearing is common among island military academies. There is a military school in the city of Matanzas, near the boy's hometown of Cardenas, but it was unclear where he is attending school. Reports in state media provided no details.

"Young Elian Gonzalez defends his revolution in the youth congress," read the headline over Monday's photo posted on Cuba Debate, the same Web site where Fidel Castro has posted his regular essays since ceding power to his younger brother, Raul, for health reasons in 2006.

Revolution is what Cubans call the rebellion that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista and brought Castro to power on New Year's Day 1959.

Elian and his father are closely watched by state authorities, who restrict their contact with the international press.

Sweet H&K bro!

fuck keeping a child away from his father... We have enough of that shit here as is.

Lot of folks didn't see it that way back then

I didn't approve of the police kicking down the door with automatic weapons and forcibly removing the kid. That was some bullshit.

Looks to me like he now belongs to the state, not the father. Just as most predicted, he was sent for "re-education" and is now being used as a political pawn. Yea, he is much better off now.

Agreed.  There could have handled the situation with a bit more subtlety and compassion.  It's not the seven year old kids that are coming in illegally and screwing up the country anyway.

File it under "they solved all the other problems so they had to take care of this one next."

Yep.  We all knew that Castro & Co. would treat him like a king as proof that they are a great country once he got back.

Amen. Had nothing to do with reuniting him with his dad.

This country can be so ass backwards sometimes.

 

Is it just me, or is there something strange with his eyes in that picture? Like he's either deep, deep in thought, or there's not much going on upstairs.

I'd sure as hell want my kids back if my ex took them to another country without my permission.  I don't care if she took them to Shangri-La, I'd want them back.

He looks like a good little commie now, I guess when the asshole Castro brothers are six feet under , this kid will step in. Well the kid can be grateful for one thing and one thing only, he did not drown rafting here.

...

Castro, like 0bama has those fools ands losers BRAINWASHED

That was the clinton/reno method. Communism first, USA second.

I'm suprised they didn't kill everyone in the house.

His Dad would probably disagree

Not everyone is as good a Dad as a lot of us here...

I think the kid would have been way better off with his Cuban relatives in the US versus rolling tobacco as a proletariat worker in Cuba

How noble of you to determine that someone else's kid is better of away from its parent(s).  

Cubans that make it to land can stay.

Cubans that get intercepted at sea go back.

Elian was intercepted at sea.

_MaH

Of course he would have been better off here...but isn't that the Dad call? Or could we have him declared an unfit father because he was a Commie?

If Bush would have been in orifice, Elian would still be here.

+1

This... I always thought it was kinda cute though, how klinton would send in stormtroopers to kick down doors to retrieve this child, yet countless American children are illegally kept from their fathers with the implicit approval of klinton and his ilk.

Double standards anyone?

I suppose everyone who lived in Germany between 1933 and 1945 was a Nazi in your universe too, huh?

Regardless of the guy's politics, no one had the right to take his son away, unless he was somehow unfit.  It's unfortunate (or perhaps fortunate for them personally) that they were turned into political pawns, but that was klinton and castro's doing.

Not to derail this thread, but remember how hot his cousin was?  I'm more interested in what she is up to now.

A Bush administraiton would have just ignored court orders to return the kid to his dad?  While I find it unlikely that he would have been removed at gunpoint, it stands to reason that the kid would have eventually gone home.

Was that directed toward me? If so you should reread my post and check out the question marks.

All those Cubans involved in Miami did not give two fucks for Elian, just their political aspirations and cred....Manny Diaz, Elian's lawyer now Mayor of City of Miami...Raul Martinez beating up the guy protesting blocking traffic. If they did not make a political show of it defying Reno and Bubba and took the kid in hiding, it is as if they wanted the goons to come and grab him from the old, toothless protesters in front of Elian's uncles house.

curious as to what you meant by that?

Asylum is something that someone or their guardian has to request, even if there is an absurd wet feet/dry feet rule.  When the mother that took him was killed the guardianship should (and was granted by our courts) go to the other parent exclusively.

It was right to return him to his father. It was wrong, abusive and insulting to all law abiding citizens to kick in the door and take him by force armed with machine guns.  Screw Janet Reno now and forever!

He was feet-dry in America. Political refugee.

Kharn

Illegal alien and was rightfully sent back to his father.

"And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white."

Cubans are automatically granted political asylum if they can reach American soil without assistance.  Plus anybody that can convert a '56 Buick into a boat capable of sailing from Cuba to Key West deserves a chance at a better life.

Kharn

+1

But I do feel that Dad even in Cuba>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>other family.



 

...then burn them alive and call them cult, child-molesting, racist, religious wackos.

Yep.

Your were wrong on your first post above....  Elian was never "feet dry" per US policy as he was turned over to the Coast Guard before he reached US soil. There was never any doubt that Elian was an illegal alien and relatives consistently lost their counter-argument in appeals court.

The rest of the world's inhabitants do not deserve a better life in the US.  What they specifically deserve is to make for a better life in their country. You have quite a liberal viewpoint on that and probably have more liberalism views than you realize.

I'm guessing that you were in middle or high school at the time, and was subjective to liberalism views of your teachers repeatedly?

Cubans tend to become good Americans. They understand the pitfalls of communism, and have a better understanding of why this country is great than most other Latin Americans.

Then they should stay "good Cubans" and make their country better, or what it use to be.   Or if you are arguing that we should change immigration policy and emit those with your version of what is a "good American", you should be able to support the reverse... sending those that are "bad" away.  Something like the Cuban government did many decades ago.    

I struggled internally about this when it was all going down. Ultimately I sided with Reno- the kid belonged with his father. I agree that another way should have been found but if you remember those times the Cubans in FL made threats- numerous times- about keeping the kid there violently. LE could not say for sure who or what was in the house- they had a good idea but good idea does not equal certainty.

On another note this did help a mother in Massacgusettes I believe to get her kids back. Her husband was some rich foreign national who took the kids and ran with them in definace of court orders. A few months after Elian was returned home the mom found out her ex's yacht was in Cuba along with the kids. Somehow word of this got to Castro and he had the kids snatched as soon as they got off the yacht. Mom and kids were reunited within a day or two.

So karma played out on both sides there.

"In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women."

Marisleysis Gonzalez

I wasn't trying to bash, just answer your hypotheticals.  

Fuck Castro Fuck Clinton Fuck Reno