Lincoln Diaz-Balart: “the secretly negotiated agreement between the Clinton administration and Fidel Castro, announced yesterday, to return…”

“the secretly negotiated agreement between the Clinton administration and Fidel Castro, announced yesterday, to return Cuban refugees to Castro's state security is unprecedented as well as immoral. As Speaker Gingrich declared yesterday, for the first time in history, the U.S. Government has agreed to cooperate with a Communist dictatorship's security forces in order to carry out the forced return of refugees who managed to escape. The administration now says that Castro has given it assurances that those refugees turned over to state security will not be persecuted, and yet they did not even ask Castro to abrogate his own law that requires jailtime for those caught trying to leave without permission. An administration official told me yesterday not to worry, that Castro has prosecutorial discretion. This, Mr. Speaker, this incident, this agreement, is shameful. It is another attempt to appease a totalitarian dictator who will still not be satisfied by the McGovernites who now control American foreign policy.”