By Tom Raum. .c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON, 2 (AP) - Lawmakers remain as divided as ever on whether Elian Gonzalez should stay in Florida or be returned to his father in Cuba - and whether Congress has a role in deciding the fate of the 6-year-old refugee.
``This problem needs to be resolved,'' said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, after his panel took testimony from those on both sides of the issue Wednesday.
But Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, senior Democrat on the panel, suggests Congress should stand clear. The boy has already been ``converted into a political symbol,'' Leahy said.
Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., principal author of a bill to grant Elian U.S. citizenship - and thus block an Immigration and Naturalization Service effort to return him to Cuba - said he still hopes Elian can win a full custody hearing in family court in Florida, either with or without passage of
his legislation.
While support for Mack's citizenship bill seems to have dwindled, many of those who first wanted the youth returned to Cuba ``no longer believe this is a simple story with a clear-cut ending,'' Mack said.
Elian became the center of an international storm after being plucked from the Atlantic in November clinging to an inner tube. His mother and others died when the small boat in which they were fleeing Cuba capsized.
A federal judge in Miami will decide later this month whether to intervene in the INS decision. Congressional leaders have informally agreed not to attempt to bring up the Mack bill before the court has ruled.
The tug of war played out in front of the Senate panel on Wednesday as Florida relatives made competing appeals to the committee.
Marisleysis Gonzalez, a cousin who has been caring for Elian, told the committee she believes the boy's father, Juan Gonzalez, is indirectly trying to signal in frequent phone calls to Miami that the boy should stay put. She suggested that Castro's government was not allowing him to state such
views openly.
``He knows that his son is in a country of freedom where he is protected,'' she said, wiping tears from her eyes.
But Manuel Gonzalez, a great-uncle who unsuccessfully sought temporary custody of the boy, countered: ``Help return this child to his father, who needs him.
``The way I think is that that child is going through a shock. He doesn't know where he is. And one must act urgently and give this child the attention he needs,'' Manuel Gonzalez said.
Hatch cited ``dramatic testimony on both sides.''
``This is not just a custody matter, but a case where one of the options considered is returning this child to one of the last prison nations in the world, Fidel Castro's wretched communist dictatorship,'' Hatch said.
But Leahy argued, ``A young boy belongs with his parent, not with distant relatives. Because we all oppose Fidel Castro does not mean we should oppose this boy being with his father.''
Weighing in on the side of those seeking to keep the boy in the United States was Alina Fernandez, an out-of-wedlock daughter of Fidel Castro who fled the country in 1993 and is one of her father's fiercest critics.
``You cannot allow this unilateral victory on behalf of a dictator,'' she told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Fernandez told the panel that sending the boy back to Cuba would only mean he would be subjected to the same socialist indoctrination that she said all Cuban children receive.
``Parental rights, family rights, do not exist there (in Cuba),'' she said. Elian's father and other family members still in Cuba are ``being used and manipulated by the Cuban government for political purposes and to generate anti-American sentiment,'' she said.
A former fashion model, Fernandez now lives in Spain.
AP-NY-03-02-00 0159EST
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