From the New York Times:

John Kasich and Jeb Bush Jr.: A Bad Idea on Immigration

By JOHN KASICH and JEB BUSH Jr. JAN. 11, 2018

Immigration has become one of the most polarizing issues of our day. But it is worth remembering that this century opened with a tale of family and migration that was as contentious as many of the stories that punctuate our current debate: the case of Elián González.

In November 1999, when Elián was 6, he left Cuba in a small boat with his mother, who was seeking a better life in Florida. She and 10 others died when the boat sank in a storm. Elián survived by clinging to an inner tube. Courts eventually ruled that he must return to his father in Cuba rather than stay with relatives in Florida. He remains there to this day.

I can recall sitting at a dinner table in late 1999, with a former Lt. Governor who wanted to talk about the Elian Gonzalez case. She turned to Gen. William Odom, head of the NSA under Reagan, and asked him what he thought of the case. The General replied, “It is of trivial importance.”

Regardless of your views of the underlying legal arguments in the case, the image of a small, frightened boy being pulled from the arms of a sheltering adult by a team of heavily armed federal agents remains seared in the minds of many people as a low point in the immigration debate.

Huh? I thought it was about Cuba.

Brace yourself for the possibility of seeing this kind of scene again.

As Republicans, whose party has consistently and rightly advanced policies to support the essential role of families

Elian was reunited with his nuclear family, over the objections of part of his extended family. The police get involved in these kind of disputes all the time in America.

in America, we are deeply troubled by the harm that is about to be done to hundreds of thousands of families that have legally called America home for more than two decades.

In the wake of the 2001 earthquake in El Salvador that claimed more than 1,000 lives and destroyed 100,000 homes, the United States allowed hard-hit families to live and work in America. This merciful act was one of many that America took to relieve the suffering of a natural disaster in one of the hemisphere’s most troubled, impoverished nations.

You might almost say that El Salvador is …

Now, after almost two decades, the nation that showed that kindness is poised to revoke it …

“Temporary” means forever.

[Comment at Unz.com]