?More on Posada

By Bill West

On the heels of the ICE announcement today that Luis Posada Carriles was formally charged in deportation proceedings and is being held without bond, a few follow up points should be noted.

Posada is viewed by some in the politically influential Cuban-American community of south Florida (almost all Republican) as a staunch anti-Castro freedom fighter and anything but a terrorist alien. The available evidence, however, suggests otherwise. Posada himself admitted to the media that he illegally entered the United States and there is strong indication that he was smuggled into the country and then harbored in south Florida by sympathetic compatriots until he was arrested two days ago. The issue of border security (or lack thereof) raised by Posada's illegal entry is a matter for another discussion.

Further, apart from the swirling debate about his involvement, or not, in the 1976 bombing of a Cubana airliner, Posada was convicted, and then later pardoned, of explosives and weapons violations in Panama related to an ill-fated plot to assassinate Castro. Then there is the matter of the bombing attacks against Cuban tourist hotels in 1997 for which Posada took credit in a 1998 interview with the New York Times. He later recanted, but in a clandestine interview with the Miami Herald this past weekend that was published May 17, he refused to deny involvement in those attacks. An innocent Italian tourist was killed in one of those attacks.

Bombing tourist hotels, even in Communist Cuba, is terrorism. Posada admitted to doing these things before, notwithstanding his later retraction, then this past weekend he refused to deny his involvement when given the opportunity. It is entirely possible the US Government has other evidence related to this matter that will come out later.

The Federal authorities are treating Posada as a suspected terrorist alien who illegally entered the United States. They have arrested and detained him and placed him in formal removal proceedings and he will receive further due process before the Immigration Court system. The Government, in spite of what must have been considerable political pressure from some to do otherwise, is doing exactly the right thing in this case and should be applauded and supported, not criticized, for doing so.

Finally, the since the 9/11 attacks, the Feds have often been criticized by some for �unfairly� targeting Muslim and Arab immigrants in the war on terror, particularly by using aggressive immigration enforcement tactics. The arrest and detention of Luis Posada Carriles demonstrates the Government properly enforces US immigration law against terrorist alien suspects regardless of their nationality or religion. Kudos to the Feds on this one!

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