Elian Gonzalez and Beyond: History Forgotten

U.S society lives in a country with a system of laws based on the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the courts. This is one of the traits of democracy that makes the U.S. special. According to search warrant filed with the U.S. District Court , Southern District of Florida, Case number, CA03-23268, under Judge Banstra as per Newsmax on April 24, 2000, the Gonzales’s’ family claimed that at no time did federal agents knock on their front door, nor did they announce their presence. More importantly as per NewsMax the INS had asked the 11th Circuit Court for permission to get Elian from his uncle's house and were denied by the 11th Circuit Court. Instead then Attorney General, Janet Reno, asked for a search warrant from
The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees U.S. citizens like the Gonzalez family the right to privacy in their own home. In order to raid a home with no known criminals as per the Judicial Watch Group's legal counsel, headquartered in Washington, D.C., they reported that warrants have to be executed properly in order to be valid. Larry Layman, General Counsel for The Judicial Watch Group, claimed the warrant was invalid for a variety of reasons:
1. The non- profit organization formed to protect citizens rights claimed that the government’s procurement of a search warrant was inappropriate because search warrants are for inanimate objects.Elian Gonzalez was a six year old boy.
2. After the raid when INS Commissioner Doris Meissner was asked on CBS’s Face the Nation “What were you searching for?” She answered: “The boy”.
3. They also had an arrest warrant for Elian but, one gets an arrest warrant to seize a person, but Elian was not a criminal but a six year old child. An arrest warrant would have been inappropriate according to an article written by Jack Thompson called the “Search Warrant “Trick”” for the news organization NewsMax.
4. When Eric Holder, number two under Attorney General Janet Reno at the Justice Department, was asked by Judge Andrew Napolitano why the government did not acquire a court order authorizing the raid from the 11th Circuit Court, Holder said,” We didn’t need an order.” The Judge correctly informed Holder that they did need a court authorization because they had asked one from the11th Circuit Court and were not given one according to Thompson’s article in NewsMax.
5. Bob Schieffer of CBS News, on the Sunday program called Face the Nation, recognized that the raid was not a search but was the first time in American history where a change of custody from one family member to another had occurred without a court order and at the point of a submachine gun. (NewsMax article by Jack Thompson on April 24, 2000.)
6. Jack Thompson for the organization, NewsMax, further reported on April 24, 2000 that the warrant, in order to be issued, required that the Justice Department claim that Elian could not be found and was a hidden person.But, everyone on Earth knew where Elian was as the entire media was parked right in front of Elian’s house taking photos and videos for the entire world to see the child.
7. The 11th Circuit Court refused to give a court order authorizing a raid on the house according the Judicial Watch Group. This is why the inappropriate and illegal search warrant was obtained by a lowly magistrate at the state level not federal level where the words” concealed person” are required on any search warrant. Elian was not concealed; his whereabouts were absolutely known. This is why the search warrant was illegally obtained and void according to Thompson’s article.
8. Thompson’s article for NewsMax further determined that there was no legitimate judicial approval for taking the boy from the house since there was no approval given by the11th Circuit Court. And, Elian being taken from the house by INS agents was illegal according to the Thompson article in NewsMax when it became publicly known about the “Search Warrant Trick.”
Time magazine has photo essay photos showing some interesting photos during the raid. In fact, a federal judge ruled Elian Gonzalez’s Miami relatives can pursue their lawsuit against the U.S. government solely on grounds that gun-wielding agents may have used “excessive force'” during the April 22, 2000, raid to seize the Cuban boy according to a on an online web service that promotes independent, grass roots conservativism and is against government fraud and corruption called the Free Republic.
Part of the report from the Free Republic group at their website states: “U.S. District Judge Shelby Highsmith, citing a Chicago Police case, said ``the Gonzalez’s have alleged sufficient facts to support such a claim' that the government may have violated their constitutional rights.” And, the Judicial Watch Group interviewed innocent by-standers and people who claimed they were beaten and tear gassed by armed INS agents during the raid by Janet Reno’s armed agents”.
Again, if there were equal protections under the law, the raid of the Gonzalez home as well as excessive force with machine guns would not have been used.
Also, Elian Gonzalez had made it to the U.S. and was therefore guaranteed the right to life under the Constitution. Would a child in the U.S. be turned over to a pedophile, or would a child be returned to Hitler in Nazi Germany? Then, how in the world could the U.S. government be fooled into returning a child back to a communist country with no human rights and with very well known human rights abuses?
Elian Gonzalez’s rights were trampled as well as were the the wishes of his mother who drowned getting Elian to freedom. How could things have gotten better for all U.S. citizens if the country could sit by and watch this happen to a poor six year old boy in 2000.
Take a look at the country today? What happened to this super-power of justice? What happened to this country in just seven years?