By Michael J. Sniffen, Associated Press, 04/27/00
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A federal appeals court today denied a request by Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez for visits with him or for an outside guardian. The court accepted instead the government's offer of regular reports from a psychiatrist and a social worker.
In a brief order, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta denied a series of requests from the 6-year-old Cuban boy's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, whose family cared for Elian for five months until federal agents returned him to his father on Saturday.
The 11th Circuit continued its order barring Elian from any site in this country that has diplomatic immunity -- a move designed to keep him out of the custody of Cuban diplomats.
On Tuesday, the Miami relatives had asked the court, which is now weighing whether to reinstate a claim of political asylum they filed on Elian's behalf, for a series of orders giving them access to Elian now that he is staying with his father, stepmother and half brother at a rural Maryland retreat.
The relatives asked that they, their attorneys and their doctors be given "regular and reasonable access to him" until the court rules on the appeal, or that the court name an outside guardian to look after him during that time.
The 11th Circuit denied all those requests.
"The government has offered to supply the court with biweekly reports from a psychiatrist, retained by the government to monitor and examine" the boy, and from a social worker, to be hired to monitor his care, the court said. "The court accepts these offers."
Justice Department officials, who had opposed the relatives' moves, were pleased but did not immediately comment.
Earlier today, Attorney General Janet Reno said the agents who seized Elian Gonzalez had to have a "show of force, not a use of force, to show we were in control." And the psychiatrist who examined the 6-year-old Cuban boy for the government said it's likely he suffered no lasting harm from the armed raid.
Reno said the pre-dawn hours of Saturday were "the most appropriate time with the least crowd" for immigration agents to conduct the raid. "This appeared to be the safest time possible to effect the transfer," she told reporters.
Elian, she said, "has had a lot of bad luck along the way. He's still resilient, he's still strong, he's still a smiling little boy."
Later, Justice officials said the Elian Gonzalez case, including the raid, had cost more than $578,000 from Thanksgiving Day, when Elian was found, through Monday. This preliminary estimate does not include the costs of the family's stay at Andrews Air Force Base from Saturday until Tuesday.
The largest figure was $374,000 for the Immigration and Naturalization Service and included the cost of training and housing 131 immigration agents who participated in the raid and Elian's government airplane flight to Washington.
U.S. marshals, who provided 20 deputies for the raid and security for Elian's father in Washington and the entire family since Saturday, spent $161,000. The figures included overtime but not regular salaries which would have been paid anyway. Other amounts were spent on legal work, mediators and conciliators, and expenses for psychiatric consultants.
Reno sidestepped a question on whether the Justice Department would intervene to set up a meeting between Elian and the Miami relatives who cared for him after his rescue from the Atlantic Ocean on Thanksgiving Day. Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez and cousin Marisleysis were the main caregivers.
"I can't imagine that Marisleysis will be out of his life," Reno said. "You could look at them and see a connection."
She was firm in defending the Justice Department's decision to seize Elian, saying the relatives gave officials no other choice. She said the relatives kept moving the "goal post" in negotiations aimed at achieving a peaceful transfer of custody of Elian to his father.
"They thought they could ignore us and we had tried to be very patient with them to effect a voluntary transfer, and then the time comes and the law must be enforced," she said.
Talking about the timing of the raid, Reno said there were very few people outside the house that morning and that if the government didn't act then, "People would be sure to find out that we were prepared to go."
As it was, she said, people outside the Miami home "tried to throw ropes around the agents as they came up to the house." One agent, Betty Mills, was grabbed as she carried Elian to a waiting van. "She, I am told, almost went down," the attorney general said.
A Justice official later said what appeared to be rope to the agents may have been cable belonging to a television cameraman who raced into the house before the agents, but tripped as his cable got caught in the door.
Asked why the American public supports the Justice Department's actions, she said, "I think one of the things was that they had a chance to see it." She said officials knew cameras would be in the house during the raid.
Elian, his father, stepmother and baby half brother, Hianny, were at a secluded Eastern Shore retreat today, awaiting a visit from the boy's former kindergarten teacher and 10-year-old cousin.
Also expected to join the family as early as today were four of Elian's Cuban classmates, along with three of their mothers and one father.
In court papers filed by the government Wednesday, a psychiatrist, Dr. Paulina F. Kernberg of Cornell University Medical College, said Elian displays a "sense of well-being and happiness with his father."
"Whenever he made eye contact with his father, his face brightened."
Psychiatrists aligned with Elian's Miami relatives challenged Kernberg's conclusions and said the 2 hours she spent with him were not enough to judge his state of mind. They urged the government to permit Florida-based "medical professionals trusted by Elian" to evaluate him.
Although the Clinton administration and Cuba's communist government have shown more cooperation than confrontation on Elian's circumstances, a top State Department official sharply criticized Cuban President Fidel Castro's actions in the case as "absolutely deplorable."
Peter Romero, assistant secretary of state, accused Castro on Wednesday of using the boy's misfortune to create "a diplomatic-political clash" with the United States. "He manipulated this for complete domestic purposes," Romero said.
Elian Gonzalez, held by Donato Dalrymple, is taken by U.S. federal agents from his Miami relatives in a pre-dawn raid Saturday.
