Published Wednesday, June 28, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Supreme Court refuses to block Elián's return to Cuba
Compiled By Madeline Baro Diaz. mbaro@herald.com
The U.S. Supreme Court today rejected a last-ditch effort by Elián González's Miami relatives to keep the boy in the country, clearing the way for the boy to return to Cuba.
The court rejected a formal appeal filed by the boy's Miami relatives and a separate emergency request aimed at postponing his departure. Its action was announced in a brief order.
The emergency request had been filed with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, but he referred it to the full court.
Elián and his father, Juan Miguel González could be on a plane back to Cuba as early as this evening. An injunction barring the boy's removal from the United States expires at 4 p.m.
The Supreme Court justices took up the matter on their conference agenda this morning. Four of the nine justices were required to express interest in reviewing the family's appeal for Justice Anthony Kennedy to grant the last-minute injunction barring the boy's return to Cuba with his father.
Earlier this month, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld the Immigration and Naturalization Service's rejection of the asylum petition filed on Elián's behalf.
Last week, the full panel of the appeals court refused a rehearing request by the Miami relatives.
Attorneys for Lázaro González, the boy's great uncle, then petitioned the Supreme Court, saying Elián has a constitutional right to appeal for asylum, and asked for an injunction. On Tuesday, Gregory Craig, attorney for Juan Miguel González, the boy's father, formally
opposed the injunction request.
``Each passing day in this country causes Juan Miguel González and his family -- including Elián -- immense and irreparable harm,'' Craig wrote the justices. Solicitor General Seth Waxman of the Justice Department, the government's chief appellate lawyer, also asked the court to
let Elián return home. In its written response, the Department of Justice claimed that immigration law provides no constitutional right for Elián to apply for political asylum. Moreover, the agency asserted that it did extensive research on his case before concluding that the boy's
father was the only person who could speak for him.
Meanwhile, Judicial Watch, a conservative organization opposed to the Clinton administration, formally joined the Miami relatives' legal team. Through a lawsuit filed on behalf of one of Elián's rescuers, it has obtained thousands of pages of internal federal documents on the case.
Elián was found off the Florida coast last November and turned over to his Miami relatives, who waged a custody battle with his father in Cuba. In April, the boy was removed from his relatives' Little Havana home by federal agents in an early morning raid and reunited with his father, who
had traveled to Washington, D.C. by that time in hopes of retrieving his son and returning to Cuba.
Herald staff writer Jay Weaver and Herald wire services contributed to this report.
Elián could leave today
Justices to rule on relatives' final plea
By Jay Weaver. jweaver@herald.com
The legal conflict over Elián González's future will reach its final turning point today, when the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to answer an emergency plea by his Miami relatives to stop the boy's planned return to Cuba this afternoon.
The high court has placed the relatives' formal appeal seeking a political asylum hearing for the 6-year-old on its conference agenda for this morning. At least four of the nine justices would have to express interest in reviewing that appeal for Justice Anthony Kennedy to grant the last-minute
injunction barring the child's departure with his father.
``We'll be getting word soon after that,'' said Kendall Coffey, the lead attorney for the Miami relatives. They sued the federal government on Elián's behalf in January after it chose not to hear his asylum request.
The Supreme Court's decision is critical, because a previous injunction blocking his departure by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals expires at 4 p.m. today. Without another injunction by Kennedy, Juan Miguel González will be allowed to leave with his son.
But if Kennedy grants it, the boy would have to stay in the United States until the Supreme Court considers the appeal by his great-uncle Lázaro González, who says Elián has a constitutional right to appeal for asylum. Kennedy is the justice assigned to review appeals from
the 11th circuit.
On Tuesday, the lawyer for the boy's father and the U.S. Solicitor General formally opposed the Miami relatives' injunction request, saying it is time for Juan Miguel González and Elián to go home.
``Each passing day in this country causes Juan Miguel González and his family -- including Elián -- immense and irreparable harm,'' attorney Gregory Craig wrote the justices. Solicitor General Seth Waxman of the Justice Department, the government's chief appellate lawyer, also
asked the court to let Elián return home.
In its written response, the Department of Justice claimed that immigration law provides no constitutional right for Elián to apply for political asylum. Moreover, the agency asserted that it did extensive research on his case before concluding that the boy's father was the only person
who could speak for him.
Meanwhile, Judicial Watch, a conservative organization opposed to the Clinton administration, formally joined the Miami relatives' legal team. Through a lawsuit filed on behalf of one of Elián's rescuers, it has obtained thousands of pages of internal federal documents on the case.
Also Tuesday, Fidel Castro's government continued to denounce the relatives' persistence in U.S. courts.
Herald translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report.
Supporters pray boy will remain
By Ana Acle. aacle@herald.com
As Elián González's father prepared in Washington, D.C., to take his son back to Cuba today, the boy's Miami great-uncle Delfín González crouched in a corner of the front yard of the family's old home in Little Havana, quiet and almost unnoticed.
It looked as though Delfín, avoiding television cameras set up for today's events, was contemplating the entire case, remembering both good and bad.
``I come by every once in a while,'' he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court will decide today whether it will hear the case. If it decides not to grant the emergency injunction sought by the boy's Miami relatives, Elián's father is free to leave with him for Cuba after 4 p.m. today.
If you didn't look closely beyond the Little Havana home, Delfín would be missed behind a wooden barricade holding up part of the chain-linked fence. The Gonzálezes took down many of the signs placed on the fence following the federal raid that seized Elián. But supporters
soon filled it with messages again, including a reward poster with Elián's photo, and biblical pamphlets titled Hope.
As if the home were a shrine, visitors still pass by to offer sympathy.
``I can't even speak to him,'' said a teary-eyed woman, voice cracking, when she saw Delfín.
``Do you want me to get you some lunch?'' a well-dressed man asked Delfín.
``We're praying for your family,'' another woman told him.
He smiled and thanked her, but never arose to meet the visitors at the fence. His face filled with worry and sadness.
Most of the González relatives avoid the home now because they don't want to remember the government's raid. They've been staying with other relatives and are preparing to move to West Miami.
Lázaro González, Delfín's brother and the great-uncle who took the lead in the fight to keep the boy in the U.S., was at the West Miami home for part of Tuesday, but he kept a low profile.
If Elián returns to Cuba, Delfín will be among those saddened by the saga's end. He first met the boy in Cuba on a visit, and Elián remembered him when he awoke in the hospital Thanksgiving Day, after being rescued from the sea.
``Cangrejo! (Crab),'' Elián reportedly said, calling Delfín by a nickname given to him when he was a political prisoner in Cuba. According to a political prisoner now in Miami, Delfín got through his prison sentence by eating crabs he found on the ground.
Of the family, Delfín is the joker, always providing one-liners.
``I always have hope,'' he said Tuesday.
Despite the government's raid, failed court attempts, and Elián's father's insistence on a return to Cuba, some exiles say they still believe something will happen in the 11th hour that will change events. ``Maybe his mother will show up and this will be over,'' said Teresita Calle.
Elián's mother, Elizabeth Brotons, drowned in the voyage that also killed 10 others, but her body was never recovered.
``All the cases that have been overturned by the Supreme Court had lost along the way,'' said a hopeful Maria Dominguez.
About 100 people gathered in front of the home Tuesday night. Some brought lawn chairs and planned to stay until 8:30 a.m. today, when they would take the protest to the federal courthouse. Some prayed in a circle.
``Those who know who Fidel is and what awaits Eliancito in Cuba could not possibly want him to go back,'' said Marta Santiago, 66, who planned to shave her head at noon today. It is a promise she made to the Virgin of Charity, Cuba's patron saint, in order to keep the boy in the United States.
``My faith is so strong, I know he'll stay.''
Herald staff writer Elaine de Valle contributed to this report.
Pursuing a better life
New country proves vastly different from rafters' dreams
By Marika Lynch . mlynch@herald.com
Dodging water cannons and pepper spray, six Cuban men scrambled from a wooden skiff in a desperate bid to reach the Florida coast at Surfside.
Now, a year after the six ran a gantlet of Coast Guard boats and television cameras, their dash to asylum looks like the easy part.
Living in obscurity in Homestead and the Florida Keys, the Surfside Six have gone from Cuban folk heroes who lunched with the mayor and paraded on Calle Ocho to struggling immigrants who can barely afford a meal. They've flailed in undertows of jail time and separation, nearly foundered in the
demands of a free society.
One yearns to return to Cuba. All are struggling in a new country vastly different from their dreams.
For Carlos Hernández Córdova, getting to Florida meant the difference between life and death.
He had made it once before, spending one year in the United States before he returned to Cuba in 1995 after his mother committed suicide.
For a second chance at freedom, he was willing to give his life, he said.
``I felt like the devil was behind me,'' Hernández said minutes after he sprinted to the Surfside beach and dove face-first into the sand as crowds cheered.
Now, he says, he wants to return to Cuba -- for good.
The second of the six to reach shore, Hernández, 30, quickly became the group's affable spokesman. He mugged for the cameras, a wide grin on his narrow face. But soon after the TV lights dimmed, Hernández's life unraveled.
His troubles began Sept. 17, just after settling aboard a motorless boat docked behind the Marathon Trailerama, a mobile-home park, which has an on-site bondsman.
That night about 8 o'clock, he was returning from a fishing trip with his cousin when a Marine Patrol officer sighted someone dumping lobsters overboard, a state report said. On board, the officer found 40 lobsters -- 16 over the recreational fishing limit. Hernández said they simply
miscounted the lobsters.
Out on bond, he got into trouble again less than a month later. On Oct. 12, he fired a stolen flare gun at a woman who had rejected his advances, missing the woman's head by six inches, a Monroe County Sheriff's Office report said.
Hernández said another man fired the flare.
With no bond, Hernández remained in jail for 73 days. Then on Dec. 20 he pleaded no contest to a battery charge. He is on probation for a year.
Hernández has developed a conspiracy theory: He asserts that police have targeted him as the ``leader'' of the group that defied the Coast Guard and are making him pay by harassing him.
Deputies at the Monroe County jail were in on the act, too, he said, torturing him by not letting him watch Spanish-language television. Becky Herrin, a spokeswoman for the Monroe Sheriff's Office, said the inmates, not deputies, decide TV programs.
"I feel like I've been criminalized by this country,'' Hernández said angrily. ``I want to know, what are human rights?''
"I think there are less here than there are in Cuba.''
Later, when a reporter asked permission to take his picture, Hernández insisted on a photo that would show him installing a roof on the cafeteria of Marathon's Stanley Switlik Elementary School.
``Show them I'm not a delinquent,'' he said.
Despite his legal troubles, the construction company D&J Industries hired him four months ago as a laborer. Supervisor Matt Dillon said he ``comes to work all the time. He's dependable.'' Another of the six, Luis Chantel Bienes, 23, who lives in a public housing project, works alongside him.
But when a photographer showed up at his boat to catch him before the 7 a.m. shift, Hernández was still asleep. An hour later -- an hour after his shift began -- Hernández emerged wearily. Someone had kept him up all night splashing around in a canoe, he explained. He feared they
were going to break in and steal his TV and refrigerator. Hernández perched on an overturned boat and pronounced: ``I'm tired. I'm not going to work today.''
His thoughts returned to his homeland.
"At any moment I'm leaving,'' he said. "Any moment.''
DAYDREAMS
Friends on the streets of Marathon wave to Juan de Dios Mirabal Fumero. Lost in thought, he doesn't even notice. Once, while riding his bike along U.S. 1, he was so caught up in daydreams that he lost control, hit a car, and tumbled to the pavement.
He's hounded by anxiety for his mother, who is plagued by ulcers and living in a one-room palm hut in Caibarién. His father is ill, too, having suffered two heart attacks since Mirabal set off for the United States.
Now 30, Mirabal feels defeated because he said he came to the United States solely to provide for his family, yet hasn't been able to hold a job for more than two months.
Though he lives in the county with the highest cost of living in Florida, Mirabal quit his first job as a Marathon roofer because the work hurt his leg and back -- injuries, he said, caused by the Coast Guard when he tried to reach shore.
LANGUAGE BARRIER
He was fired as a dishwasher in a pizzeria, he said, because without a car he kept showing up late. Then he was fired again, this time from his job as a stock boy, he said, because of miscommunication with his English-speaking manager.
``How am I going to get a job if I don't speak English? Mirabal, a machine operator in Cuba, asked, frustration in his raised voice. Yet he hasn't enrolled in English classes, either. He says his girlfriend Yolanda García, a Cuban who came to the United States on a raft in 1994, tries to
teach him words. But ``they escape me.''
On a recent afternoon, friend Juan Terry took him to the docks on Big Pine Key where he was introduced to fishermen scraping barnacles and preparing traps for lobster season, which starts Aug. 6.
``What kind of work do you want to do?'' fisherman Juan Carlos Rodríguez asked.
``I don't know,'' Mirabal replied. The words flew out of his mouth, but his motions belied them. Mirabal was already trying to impress by mimicking the worker in front of him and coiling the long black, trap rope. One-two-three, he counted, arms outstretched to measure the coils. He did this
again and again, until finally Rodriguez told him the boss wasn't around to make a decision. Mirabal left his girlfriend's phone number on the back of a store receipt. Again he retreated deep behind his cavernous brown eyes.
He spent that night aboard his brother's rickety sponging boat, the Ark. His own home, a wooden skiff a friend brought over from Cuba, sank after it sprung a leak last week.
A TAPE FOR MAMA
The worst day of the past 365, though, was May 14: ``Mother's Day. I couldn't send anything to my mother.''
With sending money out of the question, Mirabal borrowed a home video camera and made a 60-minute tape of himself and brother Carlos Mirabal Fumero -- who came to the United States on the same voyage and now filets fish in Homestead.
In the video, Carlos plays songs on his guitar about loneliness and lost loves. At one point, the 37-year-old brother unzips his jeans and turns to the side to show his mother his belly, how much weight he's gained in the United States. Laughs abound. A grin breaks Mirabal's icy face.
He was going to send the tape to his mother with García, but the Cuban government denied her a visa.
So, Mirabal spent Mother's Day at his girlfriend's kitchen table, weeping.
STUDY FOR FUTURE
At 5:30 a.m., when the alarm clock goes off in their Job Corps dorm in Homestead, Israel Ramos Consuegra and Duviel Rodríguez rise to make their bunk beds. They make sure the sink and mirror in the former Army barracks are spotless. Then the two ninth-grade dropouts go to class for eight
hours, studying English, math and air-conditioning repair.
They had quit studying in Cuba because they saw they had no future on the island. Now they rise early and abide by a 10 p.m. curfew in exchange for free meals and an education.
``We have to make sacrifices to learn,'' Ramos, 19, said.
``Like what Oscar de la Hoya says, `With education you can go to the moon,' Rodríguez, 18, said half-joking, refering to the famous boxer's commercials.
After arriving in the United States, both went to live with uncles and cousins in Hialeah. Ramos took a job with an alarm company earning $7 an hour. Rodríguez made freezer doors. Then a friend from Caibarién, Yasamanny Benavides, who arrived by boat from Cuba one week after their
dramatic entry, told them he had joined Job Corps.
Ramos and Rodríguez enrolled, too, moving from Miami-Dade County's most Cuban city to a sparse campus of pillbox buildings where only about 35 percent of the 437 students are Hispanic. Ramos, teachers say, is the studious one, who lifts weights and returns to his room to memorize his
lessons.
AN EYE FOR THE GIRLS
Rodríguez, who puts on his gold hoop earrings the minute class is done, is the charmer who focuses on girls. He sneaks a kiss with his girlfriend, Natasha Rodríguez, in the classrooms' peach hallway. Before dating her, Rodríguez went out with an ``Americana, who only spoke
English.
``Teacher, I have a blue-eyed dictionary, he boasted to Rafael Alvarez, his English teacher.
Though Alvarez said both Rodríguez and Ramos have improved their English since their first day three months ago, they still struggle. During class one recent afternoon, the timid Ramos hesitated to offer answers. Rodríguez, to his teacher's dismay, often blurts out phrases in
Spanish.
Frustrated with his lack of progress two weeks ago, Rodríguez decided to return to his cousin's house in Hialeah to look for work. Job Corps teachers and counselors immediately called him.
``Remember what your life was like back in Cuba. You came to the United States for a purpose, counselor Doriliz De Jesus told him. ``You can do it.''
He was back within 48 hours.
``Both of them are headstrong and know what they want,'' air-conditioning teacher Frank Díaz said of Ramos and Rodríguez. ``I think they are going to make it.''
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