The Washington Post
January 28, 2000
 
 
Battle Over Cuban Boy Moves to Hill
 
Warring Factions of Elian Gonzalez's Family Appeal for Congressional Allies

                  By Karen DeYoung
                  Washington Post Staff Writer
                  Friday, January 28, 2000; Page A03

                  Members of Elian Gonzalez's extended family crisscrossed Capitol Hill
                  yesterday, presenting divergent views of what the 6-year-old boy wants
                  and needs and at times nearly running into each other as they walked from
                  congressional office to office.

                  At 5 p.m., grandmothers Raquel Rodriguez and Mariela Gonzalez--who
                  want him home in Cuba--were with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) in
                  Room 410 of the Cannon House Office Building. During their meeting with
                  Elian in Miami on Wednesday, they said in a brief interview with a
                  reporter, "he seemed like a different boy. He was sad and shy. At first, he
                  didn't talk."

                  Moments later, one floor below in Cannon 312, great-uncle Lazaro
                  Gonzalez--who wants to keep him in Miami--pronounced Elian "happy, as
                  always," as he and a group of other Elian relatives and supporters entered
                  a meeting with Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.). "We're just up here
                  looking for support, and making sure all the laws are obeyed," he said.

                  Even as political wheels were turning, the legal side of the case was
                  proceeding, albeit not as quickly as the Justice Department would have
                  liked. In Miami yesterday, a federal judge set a six-week timetable for
                  considering a lawsuit filed Jan. 19 by Lazaro Gonzalez--postponing a legal
                  decision on Elian's fate until March at the earliest.

                  The great-uncle, who has refused to obey an Immigration and
                  Naturalization Service ruling that Elian be reunited with his Cuban father,
                  alleged that Attorney General Janet Reno and INS Commissioner Doris
                  M. Meissner violated Elian's constitutional rights in refusing to consider a
                  petition for political asylum filed on his behalf.

                  The Justice Department had asked U.S. District Judge William M.
                  Hoeveler to expedite the case over the next two weeks. In its 85-page
                  brief filed last night, along with hundreds of pages of supporting
                  documents, Justice asked Hoeveler to summarily dismiss the case on
                  grounds that INS had followed all pertinent laws and regulations and
                  collected all necessary information in reaching its Jan. 5 ruling. Citing
                  dozens of federal precedents, Justice maintained there were no grounds for
                  overturning the INS decision, and that even if there were, Lazaro Gonzalez
                  had no standing on which to challenge it.

                  Included in the Justice filing was a State Department statement saying that
                  failure to respect international law, as well as INS regulations, concerning
                  the reuniting of parents and children could set a dangerous precedent for
                  children of U.S. parents being held overseas.

                  Hoeveler yesterday set a hearing for March 6--the same day a Florida
                  family court that has awarded the great-uncle temporary custody of Elian
                  has set for a custody hearing.

                  On the political side, opposition appeared to be growing to two
                  Republican bills that would grant Elian instant U.S. citizenship and remove
                  him from INS jurisdiction. If the number of members willing to meet with
                  each side was any indication of congressional sentiment, the grandmothers
                  yesterday won hands down.

                  They have requested a meeting with President Clinton and said they have
                  not received a response. After the women met last weekend with Reno,
                  the White House said her office was the proper place to address their
                  concerns.

                  The Miami family, accompanied by the two other Cubans who with Elian
                  were the only survivors of the shipwreck in which his mother and nine
                  others died Thanksgiving week, met with a half-dozen members who
                  already had declared their support.

                  Starting early this morning, the grandmothers spoke to dozens of members
                  in crowded meetings that participants said usually ended in tears as
                  Gonzalez and Rodriguez recounted their closeness to Elian, his relationship
                  with his father and their alternating happiness and anger during their
                  Wednesday reunion with him.

                  Contrary to their understanding of the rules for the meeting, the women
                  said, officials from the militant anti-Castro Cuban American National
                  Foundation were with the Miami relatives. Assured they would not come
                  into contact with family members, the grandmothers said they were
                  astounded when Elian was brought to them hand in hand with Lazaro
                  Gonzalez's daughter, Marisleysis.

                  The meeting was at the home of Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, president of a
                  local Catholic college. The grandmothers complained that a visit they
                  thought would be uninterrupted was disturbed four times--once when a
                  Miami police officer removed a cellular telephone on which Elian was
                  talking to his father.

                  The Cuban Communist Party newspaper Wednesday printed a letter it
                  said was from the father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, telling the grandmothers to
                  bring a telephone so he could talk to Elian. Acceding to the wishes of the
                  Miami relatives that no cellular telephones be allowed, INS officials said
                  they told the grandmothers not to bring one, but conceded afterward the
                  instruction might not have been understood. "Nobody told us that,"
                  Rodriguez said yesterday.

                  The grandmothers said they showed Elian photographs of his family and
                  friends in Cuba and things his schoolmates had sent for him, and he began
                  to loosen up. "He hugged us very, very tightly and kissed us many times,"
                  Rodriguez said.

                  His paternal grandmother, Gonzalez, said "We told him we were going
                  through the formalities to bring him home. He didn't answer, but he smiled
                  and I looked into his eyes and I knew" that he was happy, she said.

                  Meanwhile, O'Laughlin said in an interview with the Associated Press
                  yesterday that before the reunion at her house she thought "the child should
                  be with the father." But what she "saw and felt" during the meeting "really
                  frightened me for the child." She blamed both sides but, without
                  elaboration, cited the Cuban government for trying to manipulate the
                  situation.

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