By Rick Brag. The New York Times. April 4, 2000
MIAMI, April 3 -- State Department officials say they now have visas for the father of 6-year-old Elián González and five others, and President Fidel Castro of Cuba said the father could be ready to travel to the United States as early as Tuesday.
The six visas could be issued Tuesday morning to the father, Juan Miguel González, and 5 of the 28 Cubans who had applied for the trip to the United States, said James Rubin, a State Department spokesman.
But exactly when Mr. González would arrive and how he would take custody of his son if he gets here were still very much in doubt this evening.
The Cuban government wants to send a large delegation on the trip to retrieve the boy, a group that includes a psychiatrist, classmates of Elián, Mr. González's Cuban family and the president of the National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcón, an adviser to Mr. Castro.
The six visas that were granted were for Elián's father, stepmother, an infant half-brother, a cousin, his pediatrician and his kindergarten teacher.
The other visas are still being considered, American officials said. The United States Interest Section in Havana "will be submitting a list of questions to the Cuban government" as it considers the other applications to travel to the United States with the boy's father, Mr. Rubin
said.
When asked why such a large delegation was necessary, the father's lawyer, Gregory B. Craig, said he would "not support every name on the list," but that the pediatrician and family members made perfect sense if the delegation must wait several weeks for a decision in the courts.
Mr. Craig said Mr. González was "not willing to come alone and sit for nine weeks" without his family.
But as the State Department prepared the legal paperwork to allow the boy's father into the United States, it was still unclear exactly how a transfer of the boy, either from Elián's Miami relatives to federal officials, or from the Miami family to the father himself, would be
accomplished in the volatile atmosphere surrounding the standoff.
An official with the Immigration and Naturalization Service said tonight that the agency would begin transferring custody of the boy from his great-uncle in Miami to his father but that that did not mean that immigration officials had immediate plans to take Elián from the home where he
has lived with relatives since November.
The immigration official said the agency did not want to add any trauma to the boy's life in an already tense situation.
Immigration officials had demanded that Elián's Miami relatives sign a document by Tuesday morning saying they would hand the boy over if they lost a court fight in the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, in May to keep him.
If they did not sign it, immigration officials said, they would revoke the boy's immigration status and begin the process of ultimately removing the boy from the home here, which is guarded by Cuban exiles who say they will not allow the government to take the child.
But today, immigration officials dropped their demand to revoke Elián's status.
Maria Cardona, a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said only that "our goal is to reunite Elián and his father."
"The issue is not whether we will transfer Elián to his father," Ms. Cardona said, "but when and how."
Mr. Craig said the boy's Miami family was "making this very, very difficult for us." But, he said he expected the relatives here to agree, perhaps as early as tonight, to some kind of eventual transfer, but with conditions.
In Havana today, Mr. Castro and the boy's father were the focus of a rally of about 3,000 college students from the Caribbean and Latin America. The students called for Elián's return.
"We want Elián! Down with the lie!" the students chanted.
Mr. Castro has offered two proposals for handing over the child. In one, the delegation of 28 people would care for Elián in Washington, as the custody battle is decided in the courts. The boy's Miami relatives have said they will appeal the case to the United States Supreme Court if they
lose in the appeals court in Atlanta.
But if American officials are willing to hand the child over to him immediately, the father said, he would leave for the United States as early as Tuesday now that his visa has cleared.
"I do not want to talk to any kidnapper, nor accept any condition," Mr. González said.
But it is highly unlikely that any transfer would be quick and easy, as about 100 demonstrators again gathered outside the boy's house in Little Havana -- thousands more are on call to join them at a moment's notice -- all swearing that they will never allow the boy to be taken from the home.
The boy's Miami relatives have said they do not want the child to be traumatized in any way, but his great-uncle, Lázaro González, said last week that he would not bring the boy out of his home and that government officials would have to come in and get him.
Late last week, the boy's Miami relatives said that Elián's father was verbally abusive to him on the telephone and that he told the boy that his mother, who drowned in a crossing with him from Cuba in November, was still alive.
"They're preposterous," Mr. Craig said of the accusations. "They have a close and loving relationship, father and son."
He said it was a desperate, 11th-hour effort to try and paint the father as something he is not.
Officials were quoted late this evening by The Associated Press as saying Elián's father and his family would stay at the home of Fernando Remirez, chief of Cuba's diplomatic mission in Washington.
Mr. Remirez, his wife and two children will leave their home in suburban Maryland and go elsewhere to make room for the González family, the officials said.
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company |