I once knew a lawyer who – when he was really, really drunk – bragged that he represented the Mafia. He said he helped get hundreds of millions of Mob dollars out of Cuba when Castro took over that country. He might have been just another imaginative blowhard. Or he could have been telling the truth.
The Mob had a lot of money invested in Cuba – nightclubs, casinos and so on – when Batista was in power. The degradation their activities spawned helped trigger the Castro revolution. But I believe the main cause of the upheaval was a class structure in which the elite lived high on the hog and the peasants struggled to survive.
When Castro took over, he wrought bloody revenge on the upper class, not only seizing their property and their bank accounts but also slaughtering perceived “Oppressors.”
My son-in-law Frank was among thousands of little children airlifted to safety in America during that terrible time. He was part of an operation called “Pedro Pan.”
Frank’s parents and siblings also fled Castro’s purge and settled in America.
One of the many thousands of Cubans who found refuge from Castro’s tyranny was Rafael Cruz, the Texas senator’s father. He fled to America as a teenager.
So when I read that the Canadian-born, Cuban-American senator personally intervened to block government aid to the refugee children flooding across the border from Mexico, I am shocked and disgusted.
What kind of man is this Ted Cruz?
He of all people should identify with the children’s plight. But it seems he feels entitled to special status which the children of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador do not deserve. Yes, I know Cubans enjoy special exemption under American immigration law. It has something to do with fighting Communist expansion in our hemisphere. But is it fair?
Shouldn’t the children endangered by drug gangs and fascist oppression have the same rights as those fleeing Communist terror?
If not, why not?
Click for more on Ted Cruz and the House bill.
Click for more on Operation Pedro Pan.
