Oath Of Allegiance

By TAD BARTIMUS

It took my 75-year-old newly-naturalized friend from France to clarify for me the saga of the little boy from Havana and the United States Constitution.

"America assimilates you," said Pierre, who will celebrate the first anniversary of his American citizenship on May 13. "You leave behind your old ways. When you come through U.S. Customs you feel you are protected like all the people here, you don't feel like a foreigner. To live in the United States – to become an American – and not respect the law is unthinkable."

Somewhere between the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle and the recent protests in the streets of Miami, many Cuban Americans have forgotten that. Awash in sentiment for a motherless child and consumed by zealous hatred of Fidel Castro, Little Havana is used to being pandered to by politicians who need its powerful voting bloc. Conservative Cuban immigrants and their first-generation American children wave flags and shout patriotic slogans but fail to honor the real reasons they came here in the first place.

As a young reporter in Miami in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I remember many Cuban refugees telling me how they'd risked their lives to reach America because it symbolized equal justice for all under the law.

This is a reason my friend Pierre, a Frenchman for three-quarters of a century, also gave for changing his citizenship. It is a reason Attorney General Janet Reno cited for ordering the seizure of little Elian by armed force. His Cuban American relatives in Miami had defied a federal order to turn the boy over to the custody of his father while the case made its way through the judicial system. When the caregivers –no matter how well-intentioned – refused to obey the order, they deliberately set themselves above the law.

"The law has been upheld and that was the right thing to do," President Bill Clinton said of the Easter weekend raid on the Miami house.

"The most important thing was to treat this in a lawful manner according to the process," added Clinton, an impeached president who knows all too well that no one is above the law.

This can be an uncomfortable lesson for millions of us who might be inclined to cheat on our taxes, commit white collar crime, grow marijuana, possess an unregistered handgun, or worse. Crime rates and prison populations prove some of us still don't get it; if you break the law you'd better be prepared for the consequences.

Little Havana got its wakeup call the hard way. Why many Cuban Americans are outraged by the Justice Department's action is obvious; why they are shocked is not. There was ample warning. No matter how powerful their friends, no matter how skilled their lawyers, no matter how much they believed that God was on their side, Elian's Miami protectors could not, and should not, have expected to break the law and get away with it.

Yes, the Immigration and Naturalization Service raid was traumatic. Yes, the photos of it were terrible. Yes, everybody involved – including the much-maligned Janet Reno – expressed regret that it had to happen. But since it did, it's important to remember why.

My friend Pierre, reciting for me from memory what he'd sworn to when he raised his right hand in allegiance to his new country, refreshed my memory:

"I hereby declare, on oath… that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic;

"that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same… ."

After months of spin and sputtering about what ought to be done about little Elian, it's clear that both George W. Bush and Al Gore Jr., have flunked Civics 101 and need a refresher course on citizenship from an American who's had to earn his.

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