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Elian Gonzalez Seized By Federal Agents April 28, 2000 Federal agents armed with submachine guns and teargas seized Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives before dawn on Saturday, April 22, and flew the 6-year-old to Washington to the custody of his father. According to a spokesman of the federal government, Elian was flown to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and later moved to the Wye Plantation. The federal agents, numbering 160, surrounded the home of Elian's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, at 5 a.m. The agents, belonging to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and Border Patrol, kicked in the door of the home. According to Marisleysis Gonzalez, Elian’s cousin, the agents threatened to "blow her brains out." Photos taken inside the home during the raid showed a helmeted agent holding a submachine gun pointed at Elian, who was being held by Donato Dalrymple, one of the fishermen who rescued him from the Atlantic Ocean on Thanksgiving Day. A short time later, the agents dashed from the home a terrified Elian and put him in the van to drive him to the airport. "They were animals," said Jess Garcia, a bystander. "They gassed women and children to take a defenseless child out of here. We were assaulted with no provocation." Within an hour of the raid, the crowd in Little Havana quickly swelled. Some of the crowd held hands and prayed. Federal agents said that the use of force was necessary because of the possibility that the Gonzalez family was armed. However, the agents found no guns in the home. The Gonzalez family was in the midst of telephone negotiations with the Justice Department at the time of Elian’s seizure. It appears that the negotiations were only a ruse by the Justice Department. The news media had earlier reported that the Justice Department would not attempt to take Elian during the Easter weekend. However, this turned out to be disinformation on the part of the Justice Department. Senator Bob Graham, Florida Democrat, recently made a plea, in the Oval Office, that if the government went to Elian's home to seize him, it should not do so at night. "The president of the United States made that commitment to me," says Graham, "that there would be no taking of this child at night." It appears that the President lied to Senator Graham. On April 12th, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered that Elian stay in the United States pending an appeal on a request for an asylum hearing. The court’s ruling stated that the INS had acted illegally in denying, without a hearing, Elian’s request for asylum. The Justice Department had asked the appeals court to order Lazaro Gonzalez to hand over Elian--something the boy's great-uncle refused to do last week when the Immigration and Naturalization Service gave him similar instructions. The Miami relatives argue they are under no legal obligation to place Elian in government hands. The Appeals Court did not grant the Justice Department request, but President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno decided that the Appeals Court decision would not prevent them from taking the boy by force. In response to suggestions that the agents had entered the Gonzales home illegally, Attorney General responded that the agents had a warrant. However, at week’s end, the INS had yet to produce the warrant. Following Elian’s seizure in Miami, his Miami relatives flew to Washington in hopes of seeing the boy. However, the government repeatedly turned them away from Andrews Air Force Base. Later in the week, however, it was announced that Elian would be allowed to meet with schoolmates from Cuba. The relatives who cared for Elian for the last five months, however, will not be allowed to see him. Elian was rescued by two fishermen while clinging to an inner tube off the Florida coast on November 25. He and two others survived, but his mother and 10 others drowned when their boat sank while trying to reach the United States from Cuba. The boy's Miami relatives have cared for him ever since. They insist Elian will be better off living with them and argue that the boy would be psychologically harmed and face persecution if he is returned to communist-ruled Cuba. The rescue became an international incident, with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro demanding Elian’s return. Elian’s father, Juan Gonzalez, came to the United States on April 6 in hopes of a quick return to Cuba with his son. However, he refused to travel to Miami to see his son, staying instead in Washington and demanding that the U.S. government deliver his son to him. Following the government seizure of Elian on April 22, Juan Gonzalez asked the appeals court to name him as sole representative to speak on behalf of the 6-year-old boy in all legal matters and to substitute him for the great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez. On April 27th, the court denied the request, ruling, "We grant the motion to intervene, but the motion to remove and to substitute will be carried with the case. Although we permit Juan Miguel Gonzalez to intervene in this appeal, we recognize that his belated intervention might prejudice the present parties' efforts to prepare for argument and to otherwise prosecute this appeal." A hearing on the appeal is scheduled for May 11 in Atlanta. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, plans to hold hearings on the Elian Gonzalez case in the near future. Hatch has asked Reno to provide all documents related to the surveillance of the Miami residence of the Gonzalez family, the search warrant used for the raid, the decision to send INS agents into the home to remove the boy and the conduct of the operation. Committee members have said they want to look into whether armed U.S. immigration agents used too much force when they broke down the door of the Miami home of Elian's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, and took custody of the boy at gunpoint. However, according to a committee spokesman, Senator Hatch has postponed the hearing, scheduled to begin next week, because the Justice Department was unable to provide all documents requested by a Friday 5 p.m. deadline.
© 2000 TruthNews. All Rights Reserved. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
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