CAPSULE COMMENTARY: “Immigration Hypocrisy”

“A new twist has surfaced in the Elian Gonzalez case. In a fascinating op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Elian’s Journey” (Jan. 24), James Taranto tells the story of the two other people who survived the Elian tragedy at sea – Nivaldo Fernandez and Arianne Horta, both of whom are adults. It turns out that Arianne left her 5-year-old daughter back in Cuba. Will Bill Clinton and Janet Reno demand that Fidel Castro release the girl so that she can be with her mother here in the U.S.? After all, Reno has taken great pains to say that the reason she wants Elian returned to Cuba is so that the boy will be reunited with his father. Well, then shouldn’t the girl be reunited with her mother? The truth is that Clinton and Reno have as much concern for Elian as they did for the Branch Davidian children at Waco. Clinton and Reno have one – and only one – motive in trying to return Elian to Cuba – their wish that all Cuban refugees be returned to Cuba, a wish reflected by their official government policy of repatriation. Nivaldo and Arianne ought to count their lucky stars that they made it to U.S. shores before Clinton’s U.S. Coast Guard henchmen captured them; otherwise, they would today be sitting in a Cuban jail, thanks to Clinton’s policy of forcibly repatriating Cuban refugees (women, children, and men) captured on the high seas back into Cuban communist tyranny and Castro’s policy of punishing escapees from his communist paradise.”