(06-25-2012, 09:43 PM)kandrathe Wrote: The laws were in a gray area, and they chose which law they wanted to enforce in that case.
Not that gray. His family in the United States asked the courts for asylum. It was not granted. They appealed. It was rejected. They defied the order. The authorities insisted, and tried to negotiate. They rejected that too.
What part of this is ambiguous? Force was used because the US side of the family was escalating it into an organized protest, not to mention an international incident, and would not back down, full stop.
I'm not a big fan of Janet Reno's heavy-handed use of force here. (Neither am I a fan of the Miami Cuban exiles, who tend to be a few bananas short of a Woody Allen movie...) But this incident has basically nothing to do with the general Democratic party policy on Cuba, or on Cuban migrants - except insofar as they would rather avoid a major incident. Even the most lenient enforcers deport some people sometimes, and even the harshest let some slip through the cracks. That's not the point at all.
-Jester