The Kidnapping of Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez

On Monday, November 22, 1999, fourteen illegal emigrants capsized in a fragile vessel just a few miles off the coast of Florida, and a five-year old Cuban boy was discovered clinging to the inner tube of a car tire, not far from Miami. Inmigration authorities handed the boy over to distant relatives who have been living in the United States for fifteen years, nine years prior to the birth of Elián. The authorities did not demand any documentary proof of the distant family relationship. Subsequently, a Miami Judge, Rosa Rodríguez, awarded the great uncle, who had seen he child only once before in his life, the custody of the boy. For six months, against the will of his father, relatives who were manipulated by the Cuban American National Foundation kidnapped him. Following a legal process that reached the U.S. Supreme Court and with the support of eighty per cent of the population, according to polls, the child was able to return to Cuba.