Following a speech yesterday to a GFAP 101 class, Sen. Chuck Robb (D) defended U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno's Saturday morning decision forcefully to seize six-year-old Elián Gonzalez from his U.S. relatives' home in Miami.
After a court awarded custody to Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elián's father, armed federal agents forcefully entered the Miami home and took the boy to Washington D.C to be reunited with his father.
Some members of Congress and the Cuban-Americation population in Little Havana, Miami, have criticized Reno's decision as an excessive use of force.
But Robb said he believes there were very few attractive alternatives to remedy the situation. Reno's options for handling the case "were limited in the extreme," he said in his speech to the GFAP 101 class taught by Larry J. Sabato, government and foreign affairs professor. "It has been a no-win situation for a very long time."
While Robb refrained from commenting on Reno's specific course of action, he said he believes the American people would be more outraged by inadequate force. Despite his strong defense of Reno's decision, Robb admitted that the now famous Associated Press photo of an armed federal agent confronting Elián during the early Saturday morning incident was particularly frightening.
In addition to questions about the federal government's handling of the Elián Gonzalez situation, Robb also fielded questions about his senatorial campaign against former Virginia Gov. George Allen (R).
Robb predicts in the coming months, Social Security and Medicare reform will be at the forefront of the campaigns.
But he admitted that both he and Allen share similar views on issues such as national security and foreign policy.
Despite the many questions regarding this weekend's events and the campaign trail, Robb tried to focus his speech on another controversial issue: flag burning. Robb recently opposed a constitutional amendment that would make it illegal to burn the U.S. flag. He said he believes banning flag burning would be a suppression of an American's right to free speech.
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