By RICK BRAGG
MIAMI, March
23 -- As Cuban-Americans here discussed
possible strategies
to keep the authorities from returning
6-year-old Elián
González to his father in Cuba, Senator Connie Mack of
Florida moved
to block immigration officials from taking Elián from his
Miami relatives
anytime soon.
The senator,
a Republican who has sponsored a bill to grant the boy
American citizenship,
has formally requested that the Immigration and
Naturalization
Service delay any action on Elián's return to Cuba until
Congress acts
on that legislation or until the end of the Congressional
session, said
Nancy Segerdahl, a spokeswoman at Senator Mack's
Washington office.
Ms. Segerdahl
said Senator Mack's request was intended to prevent
government officials
from "acting drastically" and "give pause to any
immediate efforts."
On Tuesday, Judge
K. Michael Moore of Federal District Court here
dismissed a
lawsuit requesting a political asylum hearing for the boy,
concluding that
only Attorney General Janet Reno could grant him
asylum.
That did not
prompt any immediate protests from Cuban-Americans
here, who account
for more than 700,000 of Miami-Dade County's 2.1
million people.
But leaders of more than a dozen Cuban exile groups met
to plan a street
protest that police fear could turn violent.
Ms. Reno said
after the judge's ruling that she would not allow asylum for
Elián,
who was found floating on an inner tube off the Florida coast, and
that he should
be returned as soon as possible to his father, Juan Miguel
González,
in Cardenas, Cuba. She has also said immigration officials
could legally
take the boy at any time.
That is not likely,
immigration experts said. Lawyers for Elián's Miami
relatives have
appealed Judge Moore's decision to the Court of Appeals
for the 11th
Circuit, in Atlanta.
Elián's
return could be deferred until the appeal is ruled on, but Ms.
Reno, while
refusing to specify when she would send the boy back, said
today she did
not have to wait for the appeals process to run its course.
Her words mobilized
Cuban-Americans here, who began surveillance of
the house in
the Little Havana neighborhood where Elián lives with his
great-uncle
Lázaro González.
To avoid such
an abrupt departure, Senator Mack requested a report on
the immigration
service's action in the case from Senator Spencer
Abraham, the
Michigan Republican who is the chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Subcommittee
on Immigration.
Immigration lawyers
in Miami called it a last-minute tactic to buy time,
but Senator
Mack said he took the action because no one seemed to be
acting in the
boy's best interests. Elián has repeatedly said he wants to
stay, according
to his relatives here, and is aware that he may be sent
back soon.
"Every question
raised in the federal court process has been a series of
technical legal
questions," Senator Mack said. "Not one question in this
process has
addressed what is in the boy's best interests. The only forum
in which the
boy's best interests can be considered is in a custody hearing
in family state
court, where all can freely speak."
Ms. Reno has said that state courts have no jurisdiction in the case.
Judge Moore concluded
that only Elián's father had the legal right to
speak for him
in an asylum claim. Lawyers for Elian's Miami relatives said
immigration
laws let even children apply for asylum, and it is that
argument they
will raise in their appeal.
Meanwhile, those
who want Elián to stay are standing by. Ramon Saul
Sanchez, who
leads the anti-Castro group Movimiento Democracia, said
he hoped that
any protest would be peaceful, but that it was hard to
guarantee.
"There are things
we can control," he said, "and there are certain things
we can't control."
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company