BY CAROLINE J. KEOUGH

 Lawyers for two men accused of smuggling Cuban refugees into the country were told they must try the case in Broward County, despite their objections that the Elian Gonzalez case has fostered anti-Cuban sentiments there.

 Angel Blanco, 53, and Jose Luis Alanso, 49, were arrested in August after allegedly landing their powerboat loaded with 12 Cuban refugees on Islamorada, a few hundred yards from a Coast Guard station, then trying to drive them to Miami. Alanso's son was among the refugees.

 Their case was scheduled for trial in Miami-Dade County, but the assigned judge was busy and a Fort Lauderdale judge volunteered to take her overflow cases.

 ``This is a Miami case, it ought to be tried before a Miami judge,'' said Joaquin Perez, attorney for Blanco. ``There is no doubt that people feel differently in Broward than they do in Miami.''

 U.S. District Judge William Dimitreoulas said he would not move the case back to Miami.

 ``I don't see that much of a difference between trying a case in Fort Lauderdale and trying it in Miami,'' Dimitreoulas said. ``Broward is getting more and more like Miami-Dade.''

 Blanco added that the lead officer in the smuggling case, the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Mary Rodriguez, signed the seizure affidavit in the Elian case.

 ``Isn't it a coincidence that in Elian's case, they seized the child in order to reunite him with his father, but in this case the father is charged with a crime for rescuing his son?'' Perez said after the Friday hearing.

 Prosecutors said they were ready to try the case immediately in Broward, and asked Dimitreoulas to limit arguments to the facts in the case.

 ``[Perez] is talking about Elian Gonzalez, which has nothing to do with this case, and that's exactly what we're trying to limit,'' said Assistant U.S. Attorney Dana Washington. ``We want to try this case based on the facts, not turn this into some sort of referendum on immigration law.''

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald