By EDWARD WONG

          For weeks, the Miami relatives of Elián González have stalled efforts
          by the federal government to take the boy in hopes that a federal
          court in Atlanta would make immigration officials grant the boy an asylum
          hearing.

          On Wednesday, that court extended a temporary stay order keeping
          Elián in the United States and criticized the way the government had
          handled the 6-year-old Cuban boy's asylum request. But federal officials
          and legal experts say that an asylum application is unlikely to succeed,
          and it is actually the story of two other shipwreck survivors that sheds
          light on how most illegal boat immigrants from Cuba manage to stay in
          this country.

          Along with Elián, Arianne Alfonzo-Horta and Nivaldo Fernandez-Ferran
          were the only survivors of the capsizing of an aluminum smuggling skiff
          last November. Elián's mother and 10 other immigrants drowned. Once
          taken into custody, the fate of Ms. Alfonzo-Horta and Mr.
          Fernandez-Ferran hinged on a legal provision called the Cuban
          Adjustment Act, a relic of the Cold War that gives unique immigration
          benefits to Cubans.

          Miami-Dade County police officers discovered the two survivors on
          Nov. 25 floating in an inner tube in a Key Biscayne marina. (Elián, also
          clinging to an inner tube, was discovered alone by two fishermen off the
          Florida coast). Dehydrated and afflicted with open sores, the adults spent
          Thanksgiving weekend in a Miami hospital before going to the Krome
          Service Processing Center, where most illegal immigrants caught in
          Florida are sent.

          While most immigrants who arrive illegally in the United States are sent
          back, the Immigration and Naturalization Service generally does not
          return Cubans. Instead, it gives many of them "parole" status. And under
          the Cuban Adjustment Act, the Cubans given that status can apply for
          permanent resident status after one year and one day. During their
          parole, they can apply for a work permit.

          So hours after walking into Krome, Ms. Alfonzo-Horta and Mr.
          Fernandez-Ferran strode out of the center and joined the tens of
          thousands of Cuban immigrants in Miami who have benefited from the
          act in recent years.

          "No other national receives the privilege benefits that a Cuban receives in
          the United States," said Dan Kane, an INS spokesman. "This has
          created a source of tension among other groups. They say they are not
          given the same equities."

          Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act in the fall of 1966, at the
          height of the Cold War. The previous year, INS officers had traveled to
          Cuba to interview people who wanted to travel to the United States. As
          a result, more than 40,000 Cubans were given exit permission by
          President Fidel Castro's government and flown to this country in
          chartered airplanes called "Freedom Flights." Attorney General Nicholas
          Katzenbach granted them parole status.

          When the act was passed, about 165,000 Cubans were living in the
          United States without permanent resident status. The new law was
          intended to get them out of their immigration limbo.

          These days, thousands of Cubans applying to come to the United States
          are given parole status each year through a lottery in Havana. Once they
          arrive, they get the benefit of the Cuban Adjustment Act.

          The statute is comparable to the Indochinese Adjustment Act of 1977.
          That law gave similar benefits to certain Vietnamese, Cambodian and
          Laotian nationals who were paroled in the United States after the end of
          the Vietnam War.

          According to recent federal policy, Cuban boat emigrants intercepted at
          sea are often repatriated. But those who reach this country's shores and
          are admitted fall under the Cuban Adjustment Act. For instance, most of
          the 3,700 or so Cuban boat immigrants who have landed on Florida
          beaches since October 1995 have benefited from the act, Mr. Kane
          said.

          The act has applied to more than 50,000 Cuban parolees since October
          1995, according to rough estimates of INS statistics.

          Because the statute does not have an age minimum, it also applies to
          unaccompanied children, Mr. Kane said. Since October 1997, nearly 90
          Cubans under the age of 18 have arrived illegally in the United States,
          according to INS statistics. Mr. Kane said that as far as he knows, no
          minor has been sent back to Cuba involuntarily.

          But he said that Elián presents a unique case. Until now, no parent has
          ever asked to have a child returned to Cuba.

          Elián's father, Juan Miguel González, flew to the United States on April 6
          to take his son back to Cuba. Mr. González was divorced from Elián's
          mother, Elizabet Brotons, who had custody of the boy.

          But now, the government believes "his father speaks for him," said Maria
          Cardona, an INS spokeswoman.

          Legal experts say that in recent years, both federal family law and
          immigration law have determined that keeping children with fit parents is
          usually the overriding priority in cases of conflicting policies.

          Rather than pushing for the government to apply the Cuban Adjustment
          Act to Elián, the boy's great-uncle, Lázaro González, is trying to get an
          asylum hearing for the boy. The INS refused to consider the boy's
          asylum bid, saying that only the father could file such an application. After
          a Miami federal judge backed the INS decision, Mr. González asked the
          11th Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to make the INS grant
          Elián an asylum hearing. A three-judge panel is scheduled to hear oral
          arguments beginning May 11.

          Legal experts say that the court will likely make a decision based on who
          whether it believes Elián's father is the only person who can file an asylum
          application for his son.

          But should the court make the INS give Elián an asylum hearing, the
          experts say, it is improbable that Elián would meet the standards set by
          INS asylum officers and immigration courts in previous cases.

          Those standards say that a successful applicant must have been
          persecuted in the past by the government or by groups not able to be
          controlled by the government, or that the individual has a "well-founded
          fear" of persecution based on one of five grounds: race, religion,
          nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.

          "I think based on that, just based on the law, it is so unlikely that they
          could somehow manipulate the statue to fit Elián," said Sharon Hom, a
          supervising lawyer at the immigration clinic at the City University of New
          York School of Law. "And our asylum law does not recognize economic
          conditions. It's not enough to say it's poor over there."

          Given the tough asylum standards, federal officials say, it is much easier
          for Cubans to seek sanctuary in the United States under the Cuban
          Adjustment Act. Each year, asylum officers and immigration courts reject
          hundreds of asylum applications by Cubans. In fact, officials say, most
          Cubans intercepted at sea do not have legitimate concerns about
          persecution, but say they are fleeing economic hardship or want to join
          relatives in the United States.

          "I think there's at least a semblance of misperception among the public
          that if you're from a particular country, you would almost automatically
          qualify for asylum in this country," said Rick Kenney, a spokesman for
          the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which runs the immigration
          courts. "From China, Cuba or Vietnam, for instance. But the fact is a lot
          of people live very normal lives in these countries. They just happen to
          live in countries that are totalitarian."