'Virtually the entire Little Havana neighborhood' suing feds over raid
By Julie Foster. © 2000 WorldNetDaily.com. June 16, 2000
Yesterday, Judicial Watch expanded its lawsuit against government officials who authorized the raid in which 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez was removed at gunpoint from his Miami relatives' home to include neighbors traumatized by the event.
Filed Thursday in federal district court, the lawsuit charges Attorney General Janet Reno, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder and Immigration and Naturalization Commissioner Doris Meissner with violating the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights of the 23 plaintiffs, which now include
virtually the entire Little Havana neighborhood where the raid took place.
Previously, Judicial Watch had brought suit on behalf of Donato Dalrymple -- the man who pulled Elian from the sea, saving the boy's life -- and other individuals affected by agents' tactics.
Larry Klayman, chief counsel for the public interest legal organization, told WorldNetDaily an 88-year-old grandmother, a 6-month-old child and a blind person were "gassed, beaten, threatened and had guns shoved in their face amidst screams of profanity by [Immigration and Naturalization
Service] agents and other Clinton-Gore Justice Department personnel" during the Easter-weekend ordeal.
As reported in WorldNetDaily last week, Judicial Watch released documents it had obtained which show collaboration between the Clinton administration and the Cuban government regarding Elian's case.
One of the email messages posted on the organization's website indicate the INS orchestrated Elian's Cuban grandmothers' visit, using the Catholic Church in the process.
Additionally, officials wrote of their intention to hold daily conference calls "to coordinate press guidance and communications with the Cubans."
Confronted with the documents, INS spokeswoman Maria Cardona resorted to personally attacking Klayman -- a tactic Klayman says the spokeswoman has used against him on previous occasions.
"She's quite adept at smear campaigns, and given the fact that her surname is of Latin descent, she should be ashamed and give more thought to helping her own people than helping the corrupt Clinton administration."
Klayman believes the Clinton-Gore administration did not decide to remove Elian from his Miami relatives on the merits of arguments surrounding the boy's case, but rather, was acting in accordance with a deal between Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and the White House -- a deal he says Judicial
Watch will work to uncover.
The organization will file an amicus brief to that effect, supporting the Miami family's lawsuit against U.S. officials.
"The brief that was filed by the attorney for the Miami family today needs some hamburger helper in that it left out the most important argument, which is that the INS was acting as a de facto agent for Cuba, as Judicial Watch uncovered in documents last week," said Klayman.
Klayman said he "hopes to obtain very large damages so they (the plaintiffs) will be able to live in the same style to which Elian Gonzales is being sent to in Communist Cuba." The suit suggests damages in excess of $100 million.
"Let these people be an example that we will never allow Nazi-like tactics again in this country," he added.
Reno, Holder and Meissner will have 20 days to respond to the lawsuit from the day they are served, which will be in the next few days.
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