Published Wednesday, April 12, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Elian's relatives say no trip to D.C.
By Andres Viglucci Ana Acle And Marika Lynch. aviglucci@herald.com
A reunion between Elian Gonzalez and his father in Washington, D.C. was put on hold this morning, reportedly because the 6-year-old boy did not want to go.
In a startling late-night twist to the custody struggle over Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban American National Foundation had announced that the boy's great uncle Lazaro Gonzalez would fly with the boy to Washington, D.C., today for a meeting with the child's father.
But Lazaro Gonzalez threw the whole trip into doubt when he told a crowd outside his Little Havana house after midnight that Elian didn't want to go.
''The boy lives in Florida. The boy has a new home. The boy said he does not want to go to Washington,'' Gonzalez said.
In another twist this morning, Lazaro, Elian and a psychologist who was trying to convince the boy to make the Washington trip were going to the home of Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, who hosted a reunion between Elian and his grandmothers earlier this year, said family spokesman Armando Gutierrez.
It was not clear why they were gathering in O'Laughlin's home, but Marisleysis Gonzalez, Elian's cousin who is regarded as his surrogate mother, was expected to join the meeting after her release from Mercy Hospital today.
O'Laughlin visited the Gonzalez's Little Havana home this morning, where about 30 or so demonstrators gathered despite the pouring rain.
A source close to the negotiations to set up the meeting had said earlier in the day there was a possibility the relatives would turn over custody of Elian to his father during the meeting, which had been scheduled for noon.
But this morning, television news shows were reporting that the family had decided the trip would not take place - for now.
The announcement of the meeting had come as the Immigration and Naturalization Service was preparing a letter that would direct the boy's Miami relatives to surrender him Thursday morning.
The goal of today's meeting, according to one of the Miami relatives' lawyers, would be for them to hear from Juan Miguel Gonzalez whether he truly wants his son returned to him. The Miami family has insisted Gonzalez has been coerced by the Cuban government into demanding Elian's return.
Jorge Mas Santos, chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation, had said the meeting would be attended by the following people: Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, his new wife and 6-month-old son, and, on the Miami side of the family, Lazaro Gonzalez, his brother Delfin, Elian, and two
adult cousins, Alfredo and Maria Isabel Martell. Monitoring the meeting would be Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., who helped arrange it.
Juan Miguel Gonzalez was meeting late Tuesday with his American lawyer, Gregory Craig, to work out details of the meeting, which was to take place at an undisclosed neutral location to protect the families' privacy.
INS said this morning they were hopeful that the family would be able to arrange a father-son reunion. If plans fall through, however, the agency will issue a demand letter today instructing the family to hand the boy over to his father.
The draft of the government's letter called for transferring the boy at 10 a.m. Thursday morning at the Coast Guard air station at Opa-locka Airport, but INS spokeswoman Maria Cardona said Friday was when the transfer would likely take place.
The Miami relatives had been seeking such a meeting since Juan Miguel Gonzalez arrived in Washington a week ago to reclaim custody of his son.
MEETING BROKER
Roger Bernstein, a member of the relatives' legal team, said late Tuesday Torricelli had been trying to broker the meeting through the Justice Department for some 24 hours. For several weeks, Torricelli has been discussing a possible deal in the Elian case with Cuban exile leaders and top
officials in the justice department, including Holder. Torricelli has been a longtime confidant of leaders of the Cuban American National Foundation.
U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno earlier Tuesday considered a meeting in Miami today with the relatives in an attempt to persuade them to cooperate in the hand-over. But the visit was suspended when the plan for Lazaro's trip was announced.
Earlier Tuesday, the Miami relatives had another proposal: meet with Juan Miguel Gonzalez in Miami without government oversight. But Juan Miguel Gonzalez said he didn't want to meet with his relatives until after he had custody of his son.
The INS planned to base the specific instructions in its transfer letter on the recommendations of a government-appointed team of mental health experts who interviewed Lazaro Gonzalez Monday in Miami. The three experts, charged with suggesting the least-traumatic way to transfer custody of
Elian, briefed Reno on Tuesday.
They have recommended a one- to two-week period during which Juan Miguel Gonzalez has custody of Elian, but his Miami relatives can visit the boy.
It would be up to Gonzalez to decide whether to follow the experts' recommendations, a Justice official said. The father could immediately return to Cuba with the boy, as the government says he's free to do.
Early Tuesday, before saying that he planned to fly to Washington, Lazaro Gonzalez suggested a Miami meeting with his nephew Juan Miguel in a letter to one of the government-selected mental-health experts.
The letter stressed that the family, including Elian, would go to the meeting only if the government can guarantee Elian would not be immediately turned over to his father, but could return to the relatives' Little Havana home.
Lazaro Gonzalez proposed the meeting take place at the Miami Beach home of O'Laughlin, president of Barry University -- the location of Elian's January visit with his grandmothers from Cuba. O'Laughlin subsequently announced her belief that Elian should stay in the U.S.
''In essence, Lazaro is willing to and insisting on a family meeting as soon as possible. Lazaro has indicated that this is a family matter that should be discussed by the family as most do around the kitchen table,'' said Manny Diaz, an attorney for Gonzalez.
''It's imperative that only the family meet,'' Diaz said. ''And that the meeting should take place before any further action.''
Justice officials said their transfer plans could change if Juan Miguel Gonzalez asked that they be postponed.
''If Juan Miguel comes to us and says, 'Hold off, I want you to wait for this meeting,' we will do so,'' one official said. ''Otherwise we're moving ahead with the transfer.''
Earlier Tuesday the Miami relatives' lawyers made a series of legal moves to prevent the transfer of custody: They asked a Miami-Dade family court judge to bar the boy's return to Cuba until a custody hearing on his father's fitness can be held. That came a day after they filed an appeal of a
federal court order upholding Reno's authority to send Elian home.
Herald staff writers Frank Davies, Eunice Ponce, Frances Robles, staff translator Renato Perez, and Herald writer Jasmine Kripalani and Herald news services contributed to this report.
Officials ask judge to throw out petition
By Jay Weaver. jweaver@herald.com
U.S. officials Tuesday belittled the renewed custody claim for Elian Gonzalez by his Miami relatives as an ''attack'' orchestrated to stall or block a government decision ordering them to hand over the boy to his Cuban father.
They urged state Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey to throw out the relatives' temporary custody petition along with an emergency protective order that was issued by a previous family court judge.
That earlier order sought to prevent the 6-year-old from leaving Miami-Dade County until a court hearing on his father's fitness as a parent. But Attorney General Janet Reno declared the order carried no legal weight.
''A father should not have to await further state court proceedings to get his son back, when [U.S. officials] already have determined that they should be reunited,'' according to government court papers filed Tuesday. ''The father is harmed by having to wait. His son is harmed by having to
wait.''
The Miami relatives on Saturday asked Bailey to continue that emergency protective order and conduct a temporary custody hearing within 10 days. On Tuesday, prompted by concerns raised by Bailey, they filed more papers supporting their claim for custody.
DECISION PENDING
Celina Rios, a spokeswoman for the family court, said the judge has not made up her mind and will soon issue her decision.
Bailey canceled the originally scheduled hearing last month while the relatives pursued a lawsuit in federal court that challenged the government's decision to deny the boy's request for a political asylum claim.
Fearing they will get no satisfaction in their federal court appeal, the relatives' lawyers rushed over to Miami family court Tuesday to revive their custody petition.
Elian's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, who is seeking temporary custody of the boy, fears that the Immigration and Naturalization Service will force him to turn over the child to his father in a matter of days and they will return to Cuba immediately.
The great-uncle alleges that because the father wants to raise his son in Cuba, he is subjecting him to the abuse of Fidel Castro's dictatorship.
''The one thing that hasn't been considered is the best interest of the boy in state court,'' Gonzalez family attorney Eduardo Rasco said. ''We are trying to get Elian's side of the story told.''
MENTAL EXPERTS
Rasco, along with attorney Laura Fabar, said that the INS refuses to let its team of mental-health experts evaluate Elian before the great-uncle transfers the boy to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who is staying near Washington, D.C.
Lazaro Gonzalez's attorneys said that their psychologists have determined that Elian would be traumatized by the transfer and relocation to Cuba, where they say Castro would use the boy as a puppet for his communist revolution and force him to denounce his mother. The boy's mother drowned along
with 10 others fleeing Cuba in late November.
''We think it is wrong to place the boy in the clutches of Fidel Castro,'' Rasco said.
In court papers, he urged Bailey to find Elian's father in default in the family court dispute because he has refused to respond to the great-uncle's suit.
But Bailey, in an order filed Sunday, hinted that she had serious doubts she could even consider Gonzalez's temporary custody claim because the federal court decision supersedes any state court jurisdiction. The judge also said she did not even think that the great-uncle could seek custody under
Florida law.
CHILD'S INTERESTS
Under Florida law, custody can be taken away from a child's sole surviving parent only if the parent is proven unfit by ''clear and convincing evidence.'' The child's best interests are considered when the dispute is between two parents -- not between a parent and a nonparent.
The INS already found, after two interviews with Elian's father, that Juan Miguel Gonzalez had a close, loving relationship with the child. The agency's decision, backed by Reno, said the INS could not consider the asylum applications made for Elian by his relatives because his father asked that
they be withdrawn.
U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore ruled last month that the INS and Reno did not abuse their broad powers in immigration disputes when they reached this conclusion.
''Lazaro seeks an alternative means of preventing Elian's return to Cuba, by asking the [family] court to find Juan Gonzalez unfit as a parent because he wishes to raise his son in his native Cuba,'' wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Dexter Lee in the government's response to the custody petition.
''The attorney general met personally with Juan Gonzalez on [Friday], and has decided to move forward on reuniting father with son. [Federal] preemption bars any action by this court that would serve to undermine that decision.''
Miami and Dade mayors meet with Reno in D.C.
Visitors urge a Gonzalez family meeting
By Frank Davies. fdavies@herald.com
WASHINGTON -- Miami Mayor Joe Carollo and Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas met with Attorney General Janet Reno on Tuesday to urge her to help bring together family members of Elian Gonzalez.
After the one-hour meeting, Reno said: ``We all agreed that helping to bring the family together to work out this orderly transition would be desirable, but I also stressed that the transfer of Elian to the care of his father must move forward without delay.''
Carollo and Penelas called for a meeting of the Gonzalez family -- father Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who is in suburban Washington, and the Miami relatives who have cared for Elian since November -- as a way to smooth any transfer of the boy and also ease tensions in Miami.
``The community will support whatever the family will decide,'' Penelas said.
But so far, Elian's father, through his lawyer Gregory Craig, has said he is unwilling to meet his Miami relatives, at least before he has custody of his son. Craig has also said the father is unwilling to travel to Miami, where relatives had suggested a meeting ``at a neutral location.''
Luis Fernandez, a spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section, said that would not happen: ``In Miami, for sure, there is no neutral place.''
CRAIG'S RESISTANCE
On Capitol Hill, Florida's two senators labored to help make a family session happen, but met resistance from Craig.
``A family meeting would be very important,'' said Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat. ``But wer'e hearing indirectly from Mr. Craig that it would be premature to have a meeting before the reunion.''
Graham and Republican Connie Mack said they would continue to press the father to agree to a family get-together. Mack said the father was ``under tremendous pressure and influence'' of the Cuban government.
``I find it greatly troubling that Juan Miguel Gonzalez would refuse an opportunity to meet with his own family -- those most important in Elian's life,'' Mack said. ``I have no doubt the father loves his son, and I believe if he could speak freely, he would have met with his family by now.''
A staffer at Craig's Washington law firm said the lawyer would have no comment Tuesday.
Graham met on Capitol Hill with Delfin Gonzalez, one of Elian's great-uncles who has sought the meeting with Juan Miguel Gonzalez, and Jorge Mas Santos, chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation.
Graham said he expected that the Miami family and the community would ``stand the stress of a final decision on the future of Elian,'' but added that ``it would help if that decision was reached in a respectful way.''
GRAHAM'S BILL
As a response to cases similar to Elian's -- including many that receive no publicity -- Graham also introduced a bill Tuesday that would improve government treatment of the estimated 5,000 unaccompanied minors who enter the United States each year.
Graham's bill would provide children in INS custody with a guardian and keep them out of jails and other adult facilities while their cases are being decided.
Mack and Graham had proposed specific bills to take Elian's case out of the hands of the INS, but Majority Leader Trent Lott admitted Tuesday that such legislation had no chance.
``We looked at giving [Elian] citizenship, permanent resident status, even just a resolution saying, you know, that we hope that he will not be sent back to Castro,'' Lott said. ``But we have not been able to get an agreement where a large majority of our people are comfortable -- and this
really does need to be decided in some place other, probably, than in the political arena or in the legislative arena.''
Herald special correspondent Ana Radelat contributed to this report.
Elian poll signals wake-up call
Robert Steinback
Approximately 60 percent of Americans nationwide feel Elian Gonzalez should be reunited with his Cuban father, a position that surely disappoints exiles in Miami.
Yet here in South Florida, a Herald/NBC 6 poll found that 76 percent of white non-Hispanics, and 92 percent of black non-Hispanics, express that sentiment.
The gap indicates the presence of a dynamic here that leads those who live closest to Cuban Americans to be even less sympathetic toward their cause.
Is this statistical evidence of anti-Cuban hostility in our community, and, if so, why?
With such a large Cuban presence in South Florida -- on the order of 800,000 -- non-Cubans here should be more familiar with the oppressive conditions inside Cuba than Americans elsewhere.
In our midst are people who have been held in Fidel Castro's prisons for daring to demand freedoms we take for granted.
The private aircraft shot down by Castro's military jets over international waters four years ago took off from a South Florida airport. Four South Florida residents, including three U.S. citizens, were killed.
Many of the 14,000 Pedro Pan children sent alone to this country by their parents to escape Castro's indoctrination camps four decades ago have settled here.
With so much direct exposure to the Cuban experience, one would expect non-Cuban South Floridians to be more hesitant than other Americans about sending Elian back to Cuba. Yet the opposite is true.
It seems likely that some non-Cubans here who say they want Elian returned do so just to spite a community they don't like.
It would be easy for Cubans to cite the poll as a simple matter of racism -- as a couple of readers did this week in e-mail messages they sent me. That, of course, would justify Cubans responding in kind, by displaying increased contempt for non-Cubans. We would then be locked in a destructive
spiral of worsening interethnic hostility that would not bode well for our future.
A better alternative would be to use the poll as a wake-up call.
Racial animosity never occurs in a vacuum -- there is always a history behind it. At the risk of oversimplification, our history is this: Non-Cubans resent the powerful economic, social and political machine that Cubans built here -- one that virtually excludes them. Cubans, justifiably proud of
their achievement, feel little obligation to invite others to the party.
Elian Gonzalez's plight has upset the local detente. Cubans find themselves appealing for solidarity from people they have largely ignored. Non-Cubans, bombarded by the passions of a community they resent, have turned a cold shoulder to exile appeals.
Earlier in their exodus to Florida, Cubans had a golden opportunity to win the empathy of their new neighbors. After all, Americans -- black Americans in particular -- tend to side with the oppressed.
But the exiles never really tried to win over their non-Cuban neighbors -- possibly because they believed their visit was only temporary, expecting Castro would soon fall.
It's still possible for Cuban and non-Cuban South Floridians to establish genuine solidarity -- but it won't be easy, since the roles of the players have changed.
Cubans now are the dominant cultural force in Miami-Dade County. It is up to them to decide that there is something to gain from better relations with non-Cubans, and then reach out to them.
Non-Cubans must then be willing to accept the olive branches, if and when they are offered.
Or we could continue on as we have -- as ethnic communities living in the same town, yet on different planets.
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