By Sue Anne Pressley and Karen DeYoung. Washington Post Staff Writers. Friday, January 7, 2000; Page A02
MIAMI, Jan. 6—Attorney General Janet Reno declined today to reverse a decision by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to return 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba, as hundreds of Cuban Americans took to the streets of this city in a mostly peaceful but determined
protest.
"Based on all the information we have to date, I see no reason to reverse the decision," Reno said at her regular Thursday news briefing in Washington, responding to a formal request to intervene by the legal team representing Elian's Miami relatives.
"What [the INS] took into consideration is who, under the law, can speak for the 6-year-old boy, who really can't speak for himself," she said. "He has a father. And there is a bond between father and son that the law recognizes and tries to honor."
The fate of the child has become an international dispute--and a sore point among many Cuban exiles here--since he was found drifting in an inner tube on Thanksgiving Day a few miles off the Florida coast. Elian's mother and nine others drowned when their boat capsized as they attempted to reach
the United States. A custody fight ensued when Elian's father in Cuba, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, and Fidel Castro's government demanded the boy's return. The INS decision Wednesday set a deadline of Jan. 14 for that to occur, sparking demonstrations today that paralyzed traffic in downtown Miami.
Protesters blocked the entrance to the bustling Port of Miami, disrupting business for more than an hour before Miami-Dade police in full riot gear moved in to make dozens of arrests. On the busy thoroughfares, including the roads leading to Miami International Airport, supporters slowed to 20
mph.
At a rally in front of the Claude Pepper Federal Building, demonstrators broke through police barricades and flooded the streets, forcing traffic to a standstill. They waved American and Cuban flags and shouted, "Free Elian!" A handful of hunger strikers took up a vigil under a
makeshift tent, vowing not to eat until the child is allowed to remain here. Many of the protesters agreed that Elian's case should be decided in family court.
"This is our way of sending a strong message to the Clinton administration that we demand for the child Elian Gonzalez his day in court," said Ramon Saul Sanchez of the anti-communist Democracy Movement, an organizer of today's protests who was among the first of 100 people to be
arrested.
Many of the demonstrators said they blame President Clinton for what they described as kowtowing to Castro. One sign in the crowd read, "Castro Gives Orders to Clinton, and Clinton Obeys."
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush wrote to Clinton seeking a reversal of the INS decision.
Officials in Washington and Havana said today that there had been no further action on the case, and U.S. sources were puzzled by the failure of attorneys for Elian's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, and other relatives in Miami to file a legal challenge they had threatened Wednesday, should they
get no satisfaction from Reno.
Cuban representatives in Washington said they, too, were waiting on the next move. "We think that [the INS decision] was a big step, a significant one," a senior Cuban official said today. "But what we need now is to have the enforcement of that decision. . . . Our concern is the
same. Time passes, and the child is still in Miami."
A reference to the ruling on state television Wednesday in Cuba, where a reported 3 million people rallied for Elian's return, warned against "excessive optimism." But Havana has issued no official statement.
Politicians on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, however, had plenty to say about the decision, with Republican candidates--Texas Gov. George W. Bush, Arizona Sen. John McCain and businessman Steve Forbes--criticizing the decision as a mistake and using the opportunity to denounce the Clinton
administration policy toward the Cuban government.
"The only people who have been sent back to Cuba in the past are criminals," McCain said.
Vice President Gore, also campaigning in New Hampshire, seemed to be distancing himself from the ruling. Without expressly disavowing the INS decision, Gore said he wants the appeals process to go forward and repeated his position that no decision about the boy's fate should be made until the
father can speak on "free soil." He said he is not convinced the father was not coerced by the Castro regime.
But Democratic candidate Bill Bradley effectively ducked the question, saying that when the controversy began, "I thought Elian Gonzalez should stay in the United States, but I'm not going to second-guess the INS."
Those members of Congress who felt moved to issue statements on the decision were near-uniformly divided along party lines, with Democrats generally supportive and Republicans critical. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), who had vowed to introduce a bill granting
the boy immediate U.S. citizenship as soon as Congress reconvenes in two weeks, said he would forge ahead anyway. "That way, when he is old enough to make decisions for himself, he will be able to claim the freedom his mother purchased for him with her life," Helms said.
In the meantime, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) urged the House Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), to issue a subpoena to Elian to block his return to Cuba until after Congress could make him a U.S. citizen, and a spokesman said Burton would seriously consider
the idea, the Miami Herald reported.
The focus of all of this attention, young Elian Gonzalez, who had begun classes this week at a private school in Miami, was kept away from school today, relatives told reporters.
If and when a decision is made by the Miami relatives to relinquish the boy, the National Council of Churches may help. Representatives of the group met with the father and Elian's grandparents in their hometown of Cardenas, Cuba, earlier this week, and the council issued a statement today that
said, "We were told the Cuban family will request that we bring the boy back. . . . We remain ready and willing to do this."
INS spokesman Russ Bergeron confirmed today that Juan Miguel Gonzalez had requested the council "to serve as his intermediary" in the return of Elian. Although Gonzalez did not reject a possible trip to Miami himself, Bergeron said, he made it clear he wanted the council involved.
But as the afternoon rush hour unfolded here, with car horns bleating in protest of the INS ruling and demonstrators blocking many major thoroughfares throughout the city, few of the anti-Cuban protesters seemed ready to give up their fight to keep the boy here.
"There's no freedom in Cuba," said 22-year-old Web site designer Michael Glynn. "I perfectly understand a father-son relationship, but here, he can have freedom."
Pressley reported from Miami, DeYoung from Washington. Staff writers David A. Vise in Washington and David Von Drehle and John F. Harris in New Hampshire and special correspondent Catharine Skipp in Miami contributed to this report.
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