ELIAN GONZÁLEZ: THE DEMOCRATS’ EXCEPTION TO THE IMMIGRATION RULES

On April 22, 2000, in a pre-dawn raid that seared itself into the American consciousness, federal agents burst into a Miami home and seized six-year-old Elian González, forcibly returning him to his father in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. The Clinton administration justified the raid under the guise of family reunification and respect for paternal custody. But behind this rationale lay a telling double standard—one that exposed how immigration law, asylum rights, and due process could be bent, bypassed, or outright denied when the political stakes demanded it.