News Memo: Was the Raid Necessary?

Was the predawn raid by armed federal agents necessary to reunite Elian with his father? According to the first director of the Justice Department's Asylum Policy and Review Unit, Roger Pilon, the rationales offered by the Justice Department "do not withstand scrutiny."

Pilon, now vice president for legal affairs at the Cato Institute and director of Cato's Center for Constitutional Studies, was director of policy for the State Department's Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs during the Reagan administration, during which time he focused especially on Cuban issues. Later, as head of the Asylum Policy and Review Unit, he wrote the asylum regulations cited last Wednesday by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

"The Justice Department's night raid on the Miami home of Elian Gonzales was an unconscionable exercise of police power, made all the worse by its exercise at the very moment a settlement was being reached. The plain reason for the raid was to change the posture of the legal case the Miami family had brought on Elian's behalf. When the Eleventh Circuit panel decided unanimously last Wednesday that the INS had denied Elian his rights under the law, the department realized that it had to move quickly to try to moot the legal proceedings-which it may have done, not by force of law but by brute force. This is a shameful episode in this nation's history," said Pilon.