The Law is a Ass

["Jose G. Perez" <jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"The Law is a Ass."

    The Honorable judges of the 11th Circuit of Atlanta seem to go out of
their way to prove the veracity of that memorable observation by Charles
Dickens's Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist in their ruling on a temporary
restraining order in the Elián González case.

    You have to remember at bottom what this is about. It is whether a child
who ALREADY unquestionable is entitled to stay in the U.S. under the Cuban
adjustment act without any hearing whatsoever has a "right" to a hearing on
political asylum.

    Given that no one challenges Elian's "right" to stay, the ONLY point of
this lawsuit is to challenge Juan Miguel's right to make that decision.
Because, whether or not Elian is granted a hearing on political asylum,
granted asylum, granted U.S. residence, made a citizen, or proclaimed
President for Life by a unanimous vote of Congress, the fact still remains:
Juan Miguel González is the boy's father, and absent a determination that he
is unfit, he has the sole right to decided how and where he will raise his
son.

    On its face, the Appeals Court ruling is a monstrous hoax. Supposedly,
the court the granted the *child's*  petition to enjoin HIMSELF from leaving
the country. The absurdity of the ruling points to the underlying swindle:
in the guise of discussing whether or not Elián can have a political asylum
hearing, someone else with a transparent agenda that has nothing to do with
the boy's welfare is being allowed to act in his name to prevent him from
going home.  It is NOT Elian's petition that has been granted, but that of
the counterrevolutionary Mafia in Miami acting through its faithful stooge,
"Great Uncle" Lázaro González.

    The U.S. Justice Department, in responding to this motion and the
underlying lawsuit, has had a dual response. On the one hand, it has urged
the court to order what the INS has ALWAYS had the power to do and can do
this very moment, which is to reunite the boy with his father. Not
surprisingly, the courts have refused to take the heat on Janet Reno's
behalf. But at the same time it has begged the court to do the executive's
job, the Justice Department has argued that it has complete,
plenipotentiary, unrestricted, unreviewable power to do anything it wants on
political asylum cases. It is, of course, not the case that federal judges
generally are all that sympathetic to asylum claims, but they do take
umbrage at the thought that they have absolutely no role to play in saying
what the law is.

    MISSING from the Justice Department's arguments is the obvious truth:
that this is not a political asylum case AT ALL. Elian already HAS the
privilege he would obtain at the end of a successful asylum claim. The
problem is that the boy's father REFUSES to exercise that option, thus the
asylum claim is really just a challenge to the father's right to decide
where and how he will raise his son in disguise.

    In granting the injunctive relief sought by the Miami Mafia, the 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals have shown  themselves to be a bunch of buffoons.

    With a straight face, these robed reactionaries of the ruling rich
argue that there are all sorts of weighty legal issues to be resolved,
centered around the language enacted by Congress that "Any alien ...
irrespective of such alien's status, may apply for asylum."

    This is an obvious bit of sophistry. The "status" that Congress clearly
intended the right to apply for asylum to trump is that of an "illegal" or
"deportable" alien. No one is arguing for Elian to be kicked out of the
United States, the issue is exactly the OPPOSITE: whether he should be FREE
to leave the United States. That much, at least, is made clear by the
kidnapper's injunction the court just ratified.

    Moreover, the court claims that not only might "Plaintiff ... be
entitled to apply personally for asylum, it appear that he did so.... He
personally signed an application for asylum."

    Thus the Honorable jackasses pretend they believe that somehow Elian
González, A SIX YEAR OLD BOY had a clue about a bunch of papers he was made
to sign in a language he does not read or understand!

    In justifying its decision, the court relies on the Polovchak case, in
which a boy who was 12 years old at the time and had already been living in
the U.S. with his parents asserted a claim to political asylum against his
parent's decision to move back to the USSR.

    It was, of course, an axiom of capitalist cold war political asylum law
that anyone from a "Communist Country" who asked for it was entitled to
political asylum as if they had been politically persecuted. So the question
in that case was, was this 12-year-old under these circumstances
sufficiently mature to make such a claim?

    That issue was never definitively settled, the case was tied up in court
for so long that eventually the boy came to an age where he was
unquestionably entitled to make decisions for himself and it became moot.

    But even in the rulings in support of Polovchak, the courts made the
point that whatever the age limit might be for asserting such a claim on his
own, Polovchak was barely inside it.
Leaving aside whether that was correctly decided, clearly a six year old
child is so far away from an age where they can assert such a claim
independently that to even suggest that is the case is utterly preposterous.

    The truth is these robed reactionaries of the ruling rich on the 11th
Circuit  had their minds made up that, at least at this stage, they would
support the Miami Mafia's kidnapping, not matter HOW PREPOSTEROUS the
arguments it would have to make to reach this decision.

    Thus with a straight face that the judges lecture the INS for failing to
speak to or interview Elián before making a decision. They also justify
Lázaro acting on Elián's behalf because "Lázaro is a blood relative."

    Imagine this precedent. ANY "blood relative" is entitled to challenge a
parent's decision on where and how he will raise his children by filing a
political asylum application on the child's behalf!

    Moreover, as if to PROVE that the court is beholden to the same
right-wing forces as in the Great Uncle, the court claims that "Lázaro's
interests, to say the least, are not obviously hostile to Plaintiff's
interests." Just consider that. Lázaro's "interest" is in stripping this boy
of the right to be raised by his father. The Honorable Court finds that
Elián's "interests" are not harmed by being removed from his father and his
family.

    Thus the SLANDER that the CIA launched against the Cuban revolution 4
decades ago, that the revolution was going to "nationalize" children, that
the state, not the parents, would decide how to raise them, has now come
true, not in Cuba, but in the United States, and not by a decree of a
revolutionary socialist government, but by a ruling of a reactionary
capitalist court.
For what does it mean to say that Lázaro's "interests" to take the child
from his father are "not obviously hostile" to the child's own interests
except to say that the natural right of parents to raise their children and
children to be raised by their parents has been annulled?

    As for Janet Reno, who so eagerly seized on the filing of this motion a
week ago to put off for the umpteenth time what she should have done LAST
NOVEMBER, I must say it was a well deserved kick in the teeth. She claims to
be oh-so-full of integrity and oh-so-determined that the rule of law apply,
but she's not yet seen her way clear to defying the mob of cowards who are
keeping Elian imprisoned in Miami.

    There should be no more excuses, delays, more negotiations, petitions,
requests, letters, personal appeals, or intermediaries. The place of Elian
Gonzalez is with his father, and Reno has no conceivable excuse or pretext
for not moving immediately to reunite them.

Jose







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