Feds Raid Elián González: Immigration Battle Ignites Miami

Federal agents kicked down a door in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood at approximately 5:15 a.m. on April 22, 2000, seizing six-year-old Elian Gonzalez from the arms of Donato Dalrymple, the fisherman who had rescued the boy from the Atlantic Ocean five months earlier. The Associated Press photographer Alan Diaz captured the moment through a closet door: an INS agent in tactical gear, pointing an automatic weapon in the direction of the terrified boy and the man holding him. The photograph won the Pulitzer Prize. Elian had been found floating on an inner tube off the coast of Fort Lauderdale on November 25, 1999, after the boat carrying him and his mother from Cuba capsized. His mother drowned. His Miami relatives, led by his great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, took custody and refused to return him to his father in Cuba, who demanded his son back. The case became an international custody battle that divided the Cuban-American community, inflamed U.S.-Cuba relations, and forced the Clinton administration into a confrontation it spent months trying to avoid. The Miami relatives' argument was that Elian's mother had died trying to bring him to freedom and that returning him to Cuba would dishonor her sacrifice. The father's argument was simpler: he was the boy's parent and wanted him home. Attorney General Janet Reno authorized the raid after negotiations collapsed. Within hours, Elian was reunited with his father at Andrews Air Force Base. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case, and Elian returned to Cuba in June 2000. The raid is credited with tipping Florida's Cuban-American vote against Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, potentially costing him the state and the presidency.