The Cuban Boy Crisis

Before the U.S Department of Interior makes yet another frivolous complaint about our system of local labor and immigration control, we should strongly suggest that it looks to its own U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service first.

To be sure, America must set an example. Before it complains about the problems of others, Uncle Sam must first ensure that it is consistently abiding by its own professed federal standards (in order to avoid charges of hypocrisy and uphold its credibility).

And in this connection, we must ask the following question: Why has the INS failed to promptly enforce its own laws by deporting the Cuban boy, Mr. Elian Gonzalez, in Florida?

The Cuban boy is both a minor and an illegal alien. He has absolutely no legal right to continue to remain in America. Minors, to my knowledge, cannot apply for political asylum.

So why wasn’t the boy deported right away? Why has the INS allowed a local family court to delay the boy’s immediate deportation?

Florida’s family courts have no jurisdiction in this federal immigration matter–and yet the boy continues to reside in Miami. He should be deported right away.

This Elian Gonzalez incident has made a complete mockery out of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. It also violates some other laws and sacred legal principles.

The Cuban boy does not belong to the U.S. government or the American people. He does not belong to the Cuban-American community in Miami. He does not belong to Fidel Castro or the Cuban Communist government. He does not even belong to his relatives in Florida. As a minor, he belongs solely to his father, who ultimately has certain parental rights.

By failing to return the boy to his father, the U.S. government is arguably facilitating a legal kidnapping. At the very least, the U.S. government is violating the legal parental rights of the boy’s father. What’s worse–traditional family values are at stake. Conservative Republicans should be alarmed.

Moreover, by failing to deport young Mr. Gonzalez, the American government is apparently playing right into the hands of Fidel Castro by bolstering Cuban resentment against the United States.

Worst of all, it clearly shows the people of the CNMI that politics (i.e., Cuban community political donations) supersedes the rule of law in America–including INS regulations–and that even a fully federalized system such as the U.S. can indeed be seriously flawed?

(Anyway, at least the Cuban Boy Crisis sure beats the Cuban Missile Crisis.)