Haberman writes: "As clichés go, the one about 'the long arm of the law' is moth-eaten. But the law does in fact have a reach, and it can extend far. In recent years, it has stretched out to grab foreign nationals who found refuge in the United States after committing or sanctioning political murder, torture and other human rights abuses in their home countries."
Jose Guillermo Garcia may soon be deported. (photo: AP/Marta Lavandier)
10 November 14
s clichés go, the one about “the long arm of the law” is moth-eaten. But the law does in fact have a reach, and it can extend far. In recent years, it has stretched out to grab foreign nationals who found refuge in the United States after committing or sanctioning political murder, torture and other human rights abuses in their home countries. Hundreds of them have been sent packing, including government officials and thuggish factotums from places with troubled pasts, like Rwanda, Peru, Bosnia, Argentina, Haiti, Guatemala and Liberia. Some former guards at Nazi death camps have been dispatched to Germany and other European countries.
The rationale behind the deportations is simple: Those responsible for monstrous deeds, regardless of how far away and how long ago, have no business being here. In that vein, the Retro Report series of video documentaries about past news stories and their aftermaths turns its attention this week to El Salvador, which exemplifies some of the legal complexities when it comes to rooting out and then shipping out those deemed guilty.
If immigration courts have their way, the ranks of the deported will include two Salvadoran generals who were defense ministers in the 1980s, blood-soaked years in that country. These men, José Guillermo García, now 81, and Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, 77, have been living in Florida for a quarter-century. They were allowed to settle there during the presidency of George Bush, who, like his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, considered them allies and bulwarks against a Moscow-backed leftist insurgency. But administrations change, and so do government attitudes. Over the past two and a half years, immigration judges in Florida have ruled that the generals bore responsibility for assassinations and massacres, and deserve now to be “removed” — bureaucratese for deported. Both are appealing the decisions, so for now they are going nowhere. Given their ages, their cases may be, for all parties, a race against time.
