INS to send letter to Elian's Miami family

April 6, 2000
Web posted at: 8:54 p.m. EDT (0054 GMT)

In this story: 'The right thing to do' Elian's father: Separation has been 'agonizing' Human chain formed at Miami home Relatives refuse to take Elian to father RELATED STORIES, SITES

MIAMI (CNN) -- U.S. officals will soon send a letter to the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez that will ask the family to transfer temporary care of the boy to his father, said Robert Wallis, director of the Miami district of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The letter is still under review and will be issued in a few days.

Meanwhile, with Elian Gonzalez's father waiting in Washington for a reunion with his son, one of the lawyers for the boy's Miami relatives said their negotiations with U.S. immigration officials have ended after six days with no agreement.

"The government will not guarantee that it will not take Elian away, or try to take him away, in the middle of the night," said Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, a member of the legal team for Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian's great-uncle.

The attorney also said the government refused to guarantee that the boy's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, would not return the child to Cuba before a federal appeals court has a chance to rule on the U.S. family's request for an asylum hearing for the boy.

FATHER'S STATEMENT Juan Miguel Gonzalez speaks to the media in Washington. QuickTime Play Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K      AUDIO Garcia-Pedrosa, attorney for Elian's Miami relatives, says talks with U.S. officials broke down 1MB/48 sec. AIFF or WAV sound Correspondent Bill Delaney reports from Havana on how Cubans view of the Elian saga 637K/28 sec. AIFF or WAV sound     ALSO Elian debate highlights Cuban-American generation gap latimes.com: Congress is often handed tough immigration cases     VIDEO Miami Bureau Chief John Zarrella profiles the Cuban exile community in Miami. QuickTime Play Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K      RESOURCES Who's who in the Elian Gonzalez case     MESSAGE BOARD US/Cuba relations

Garcia-Pedrosa said the government refused to be bound by the recommendation of an independent panel of psychiatrists to determine the emotional effect on Elian if he is returned to his father.

"The government has rejected the standard of the best interest of the child as the guiding principle," Garcia-Pedrosa said.

The government told the family attorneys that they were revoking or transferring Elian's parole and giving custody of the child to his father, Garcia-Pedrosa said.

Elian has been the focus of a custody battle since he was found floating off the Florida coast in November. Elian's mother, who was divorced from Juan Miguel Gonzalez, died along with 10 others when their boat sank during an attempt to cross from Cuba to Florida.

Elian was one of three survivors.

A senior Justice Department official told reporters Thursday, "It does appear they (the talks) have been unsuccessful," but stopped just short of saying they were broken off for good.

"We are disappointed that the attorneys for the relatives insisted on re-litigating the issue of whether to transfer the child, as opposed to how to carry out that transfer," the official said.

Elian's Miami relatives have asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to overturn a federal judge's ruling in late March affirming the decision of the INS to return Elian to his father.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for May 8.

Assistant Attorney General Eric Holder said the arrival of Juan Miguel Gonzalez in the United States on Thursday had completely changed the dynamic in the government's discussions with the Miami relatives.

"Uniting Elian with his father is not only a matter of federal law, it is not a matter of immigration law, it is simply the right thing to do," Holder said. "The father and son need to be together."

The reunion could occur in Miami, Holder said at a news briefing, but added, "There may be other places where it's best to have this reunion occur." Department officials said the father was reluctant to go to Miami, home of a vocal anti-communist Cuban exile community.

Attorney General Janet Reno and INS Commissioner Doris Meissner plan to meet with Juan Miguel Gonzalez and his attorney, Gregory Craig , on Friday morning, officials said.

Elian's father arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport in suburban Virginia around 6:30 a.m., accompanied by his second wife, Nercy, and their infant son, Hianny.

"I'll be soon able to embrace my son, Elian Gonzalez, for the first time in over four months," Juan Miguel Gonzalez said at the airport. "I'm here with my wife and 6-month-old son. This is Elian's true family, and we love him very much."

Juan Miguel Gonzalez went on to say that the 137 days since he last saw Elian have been an "agonizing experience." He said he wanted to gain custody of Elian and immediately return to Cuba, "but I have been told I should wait for two other months until I can take Elian to his home."

He pleaded with U.S. government officials to allow a so-called "support team" to come to the United States if he has to wait until the appeal by the Miami relatives winds its way through the courts.

"I am confident that U.S. authorities will not allow my child to continue to be hurt," Juan Miguel Gonzalez said.

Elian's Miami relatives and their supporters said they were stung by the criticism and did not believe Juan Miguel Gonzalez wrote the remarks himself.

"Unfortunately, we saw him reading a statement ... not talking in the loving way in which a father talks, which suggests, perhaps, that the statement was written by someone else," said Ramon Saul Sanchez, leader of the anti-Castro Democracy Movement.

Upon word that negotiations over Elian had ended, about 50 people, mostly Cuban-American women and children, crossed through police barricades and locked their arms to form a human chain around the Miami home where Elian is staying to prevent him from being sent back to Cuba.

Some 100 other anti-Castro protesters stood peacefully behind the barricades.

Amid the developments Thursday, Elian played on a slide outside the home of Lazaro Gonzalez and fired toy guns as the usual gathering of reporters and photographers took note.

The great-uncle said Elian knows his father is in the United States and saw him on television. "He knows," Lazaro Gonzalez told CNN. "He knows also that his mother died here, coming to the United States for freedom."

There was no word on the boy's reaction to his father's arrival.

An attorney for the Florida relatives, Roger Bernstein, said a psychologist was coming to the home to "counsel" the boy and the family. "Elian is afraid of his father and afraid of going back to Cuba," Bernstein told CNN.

Although Juan Miguel Gonzalez criticized the Miami family, whom he characterized as "distant relatives," the boy's father expressed gratitude to average Americans, whom he said have been in favor of his reunification with his son.

Juan Miguel Gonzalez is staying at the two-story brick home of Fernando Remirez, head of the Cuban diplomatic mission to the United States, in Bethesda, Maryland.

He will meet there Friday morning with U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, Lee's office told CNN.

"She wants to get a sense of what he's about and what he wants to do," an aide to Jackson Lee said.

Jackson Lee, the ranking Democrat on the House Immigration and Claims subcommittee, has been a vocal advocate for reuniting Elian with his father. She met with the boy's grandmothers on Capitol Hill during their U.S. visit earlier this year

Although some U.S. politicians have been eager to offer the Gonzalez family permanent residency status and thought the father might want to stay in the United States once away from the Communist regime in Cuba, Juan Miguel Gonzalez appeared to have no such thoughts in mind.

Police stationed at the Remirez home in Bethesda designated a demonstration area about 100 feet away from the house on an adjacent street.

Remirez said diplomatic immunity was being dropped for his residence. That will place the suburban Washington home under the control of the United States rather than the Cuban government.

The step was being taken to lift suspicions that the father, even though in the United States, was being controlled by Havana.

Lazaro Gonzalez said Wednesday night in Miami that he and his family were willing to meet with Elian's father at their home, but nowhere else.

"We aren't going to take the boy anywhere," he said.

Armando Gutierrez, a spokesman for the Miami relatives, extended an invitation to Elian's father to come to Miami to resolve questions about Elian's future.

The family does not need "two governments, hundreds of lawyers and thousands of media," he said, to deal with the question of who should have custody of the boy.

"We will ask him to come to Miami, to meet at the house (where Elian has been living) and to try to work this out as a family," Gutierrez said. "We will guarantee Juan Miguel will be safe in this house and we will respect whatever is worked out with the family."

Havana Bureau Chief Lucia Newman, Correspondents Kate Snow, Susan Candiotti, Mark Potter and Bob Franken; Producer Ted Barrett and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
  • Elian Gonzalez NCC Project - Frequently Asked Questions
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
U.S. Department of Justice
LibertyForElian.org - Foundation to Help Save Elian
Granma Internacional Digital, Cuba
  • Kidnap in Miami
Cubaweb
Cuban American National Foundation

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