OPINION:
Many of us remember Elian Gonzalez. His mother tried to bring him here from Cuba to be free. The boat sank and his mother died, but Elian survived. The now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service granted Elian temporary permission to stay in the U.S. and placed him with his great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez.
Elian’s father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, sought his son’s return to Cuba. Elian was returned to his father’s custody after an INS raid on his Miami relatives’ home on April 22, 2000.
Why did Judge Sparkle Sooknanan recently decide to stop the reunion of Guatemalan parents and children (“U.S. judge bars government from sending Guatemalan children back, for now,” Web, Aug. 31)? If our government can forcibly take a child from a relative and send him to his father, why would a judge stop the government from returning children to their parents?
JIM HONTZ
Riverdale, Maryland
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