I Am Cuba

New at Reason: Damien Cave goes underground with Havana's black economy.

Comments

[joe]

"With Clinton/Reno et al in charge, that kid was gone."

"Now if Clinton and Reno made the right decision for the wrong reason, well nuts to them."

It wasn't Clinton and Reno's call. The immigration judge made a ruling on black letter law. You want the Attorney General and President to start treating judicial rulings as elective?

[fyodor]

Thanks for the clarification, Joe, I remember that now. But didn't the Clinton admin take an official position on the matter which they then argued in the immigration court? If so, then one can still take issue with the admin's position and/or its reasons for it, though it would still be ridiculous to make the comment that Clem made. Well, unless he thinks the admin was somehow surreptitiously controlling or intimidating the court, which I wouldn't put past an avid Clinton hater! 🙂

[joe]

Yes, lawyers from Justice defended the constitutionality of the law. Notably, Al Gore dissented, saying that the decision of where Elian should live should be decided in a family court like a custody case, not an immigration court. I agreed at the time, but since the outcome of either legal track was going to be the same (a boy whose mom dies should live with dad, unless Dad is a violent drunk, duh), I didn't get too worked up.

For his trouble, Gore got absolutely no credit from the hysterical right, who ignored the fact that he was siding with them, and went right to denouncing him for not-knowing-who-he-is-saying-anything-to-get-elected-changing-his-shirt-etc.

Clem, the Cuban government is probably doing horribly abusive things, like using him as the focal point of political rallies he doesn't understand, keeping him from seeing his only living parent, and making him sign documents he can't read.

[Don]

"Notably, Al Gore dissented, saying that the decision of where Elian should live should be decided in a family court like a custody case, not an immigration court. "

Yep--Gore's bid for votes in Miami. It fell short ...

[Perry Strunk-White]

It's not "news" that an article has appeared in your own magazine, or even "weird news" or "snippets that make our opponents look stupid", which all would seem to me to define what "Hit and Run" is about. If it shows up on the "H.&R." block because you want us to be able to comment about it in a public forum, why not attach the forum link to the article itself?

[c]

the real libertarian reaction to this would be to form your own magazine/weblog/forum and drive reason out of business with your superior information architecture.

[Clement Vallandigham]

Funny, c, very funny, that's actually one of strangest complaints I've ever seen.

Anyway, on to the article, Elian's counsel Gregory Craig was on TV a few years ago and said: A) Cuba is a great place to live because of the educational anh health care system and B) Most of the the vehement criticism of Cuba comes from "right-wing extremists" in Florida.

Therefore, Cave must be a cipher for the rabid, extremist, anti-Castro sentiment in S. Florida.

[joe]

We have an adversarial legal system, Clem. Craig was a lawyer hired, and bound by his profession's code of ethics, to vigorously advocate for his client's "side." At the time, his adversaries were arguing that letting the boy live with his dad in Cuba was de facto abuse, justifying his removal from the home, because of the conditions of living there. Refuting charges by presenting facts that contradict them, and undermining the credibility of the people making them, are not unheard of in court cases.

[Moraes Chris]

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DATE: 01/20/2004 10:59:43
Love can damage more than you can heal with drinking.