Elian talks shift to turning boy over to father's custody
By Associated Press, 04/03/00
WASHINGTON - Immigration officials and the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez turned their attention today to how to reunite the 6-year-old boy with his father when Juan Miguel Gonzalez arrives in this country, a Justice Department official said.
"The issue has shifted from revocation of Elian's parole to the issue of transferring him to Juan Miguel's custody, effective as soon as Juan Miguel gets to the United States," this official said, requesting anonymity. "Tuesday's deadline has been superseded by this change of issues."
After a morning negotiating session in Miami, the INS and the relatives reconvened there in early afternoon for a second session today.
The INS had earlier said it would end the Miami relatives' custody of Elian on Tuesday morning if they did not agree to give him up if they lose an appeal of a federal court decision they lost last month.
With visa applications filed this morning in Havana, the elder Gonzalez is expected to arrive in this country soon, so the government changed the topic of the talks to "how best to effectuate Elian's transfer to his father here in a way that is conducive to Elian," the official said.
Elian's Miami relatives and their allies began questioning Sunday whether the boy's father is a fit parent.
The White House and the father's attorney insist that the boy belongs with his father, but lawyers for the relatives suggested Sunday there is evidence he is unfit to care for the small child.
A Miami lawyer who on Sunday had said the father told Elian via telephone that his mother was alive and waiting for him in Cuba, acknowledged today she had heard no such remark. "We're sure he loves his own son and we know Elian loves his father," Linda Osberg-Braun, an attorney for the boy's relatives, said on CBS' "The Early Show."
The boy was pulled from the Atlantic last November after his mother and 10 other people drowned while fleeing Cuba. Since that time, Elian has been with Miami relatives.
"We believe (the father) Juan Miguel (Gonzalez) is completely under the gun of the Castro regime," said Osberg-Braun. "We think they are putting him up to psychological warfare and tactics against his own son."
A State Department official said the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana received visa applications this morning from 28 Cubans in the Gonzalez case, presumably including the father and grandparents.
Gregory Craig, who represents the father, said he expected the father to get a visa today to come to the United States. "We really don't think there's any excuse for any more delay between the time these two can be reunited, the father and son," Craig told CBS.
Talks between government lawyers and representatives of the Miami relatives were resuming today, against a Justice Department-set Tuesday deadline for a signed agreement by the family to turn Elian over for return to Cuba if it loses a custody battle in court.
In Havana, Cuban President Fidel Castro said Elian's father was willing to travel alone to the United States today if officials promised to turn over the boy to him and let them return to Cuba right away.
The boy's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, issued a statement Sunday in Miami inviting Juan Gonzalez, his wife and their baby son to "spend time with us as a family, to begin a process of interaction with Elian under circumstances that are best for him."
"Our goal is to reunite Elian and his father," said Maria Cardona, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. "Suffice it to say, the issue is not whether we will transfer Elian to his father, but when and how."
Manny Diaz, an attorney for the boy's relatives, said the federal court and Clinton administration have been presented evidence relating to the father's fitness as a parent, but he declined to detail it.
"One of the lawyers on our team met with the attorney general at the beginning of this process and raised those types of concern," Diaz said on ABC's "This Week."
But Craig said the family is just now raising the issue after months of acknowledging that Gonzalez was a loving man. "It's outrageous," he said on CNN.
The family's arguments come as the Justice Department insists the relatives agree to surrender Elian if they lose their pending court case.
It has given the relatives until Tuesday to sign such a promise and has threatened to revoke the boy's permission to be in this country if they do not agree. That deadline has already been extended twice.
Family members want to preserve their option to keep up the legal fight even if they lose their case in federal court. They also want a family court, which considers a child's best interests, to hear the case.
The Miami relatives have said they will surrender the boy if INS agents show up at their door and demand him. Federal officials hope to avoid that.
White House chief of staff John Podesta stressed that the administration believes Elian should be with his father, who wants him back in Cuba.
"A child belongs with his natural parent unless that parent's unfit," Podesta said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "We have no indication that Elian's father is an unfit parent."
Public sentiment around the country leans toward sending Elian back to Cuba to be with his father, according to an ABC News-Washington Post poll released over the weekend. In that poll, about six of 10 Americans said the boy should be returned to his father, while a third said he should stay in the United States. In December just under half said he should be returned to Cuba and one in five had not made up their mind.
The sentiment to return the boy was spread across the political spectrum with almost two-thirds of independents taking that position, six in 10 Democrats and more than half the Republicans. The poll was taken Thursday through Saturday of 930 adults and has an error margin of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Elian Gonzalez is carried in the arms of his cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez March 24 in Miami. (AP photo)
