Here is a copy of Lazaro Gonzalez's letter to U.S.
 Attorney General Janet Reno, dated April 8, 2000.
 Michael Pearson, who is mentioned at the
 beginning, is a senior INS official.

 Dear Attorney General Reno:

 I have received Mr. Michael Pearson's letter dated April 7, 2000.

 Once again you have chosen to communicate with my family through someone other than yourself. You took time off from your very busy schedule to meet with my nephew, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, a foreign citizen, and his lawyer. You also took the time to meet with Elian's grandmothers, once again foreign citizens. Notwithstanding the time you have taken to meet with the Cuban members of the family, you have steadfastly refused to meet with any members of our American family and our counsel. As such, I have decided to stop corresponding with your intermediaries and instead write to you directly.

 For some time now, my family has requested that the government arrange for its own independent psychiatric and/or psychological evaluations of a child who has been so severely traumatized by an almost unimaginable odyssey. We have been adamant in our request because during the last four months my family has heard directly from Elian with respect to his fears and wishes. My family's resolve has only been strengthened by the opinions of the professionals who have evaluated Elian. They have indicated that ''Elian has expressed that his father freely expresses his anger out of control and in an abusive manner in specific instances,'' and that if he is separated from my daughter Marisleysis ''he'll suffer irreversible emotional damage.''

 Despite our cries for help, you, as a representative of the most compassionate and caring system of government the world has ever known, have refused to consider our plea. Apparently, after all of this time, you have finally agreed to involve your own team of two psychiatrists and one psychologist. For this, my family is grateful. However, we are disheartened by Mr. Pearson's statements to the effect that ''these experts have all advised that Elian should return to his father's care as soon after his father's arrival in this country as possible.'' It is so difficult for my family to understand how it is that these psychiatrists and psychologist could have arrived at this conclusion without the benefit of meeting Juan Miguel, his wife (who may some day play a significant role in Elian's life), my family and most importantly, Elian. It would be difficult for us to believe that these experts were selected by our government simply because their opinions reflect your predetermined views of this matter without any consideration of Elian's best interest. I believe that the experts should meet with Elian and his American family before reaching their conclusions. I cannot understand why they would only meet with the adults and even then, only after having reached their decision about a child they have never met.

 In today's edition of The Miami Herald, several experts with experience in these types of matters were quoted as saying that ''we work in the best interests of the child, first and foremost. ...The child's needs come first.'' They also suggested that such an evaluation in this type of case ''would require about two week's time and the involvement of the entire family.'' That same expert described the process as including personal observations of Elian interacting with the various members of his family so that a determination could be made as to the ''level of comfort on the part of the child, and how attuned the adults are to the needs of the child.'' Another consideration is whether the adults ''put the child's needs before their own.'' In conclusion, one of the experts expressed her desire this way: ''Hopefully, his father will know him well enough to know when to step back, when to give him a little time and space'' and that ''a good sensitive parent should be able to sense that with his child.'' ''Of course,'' she concluded, ''that depends on the relationship they had previously,'' something which obviously cannot be determined without evaluating Elian.

 There is an additional point I wish to address. You have indicated that based on two meetings between Juan Miguel and two United States representatives who live in Cuba and are required to work on a daily basis with the government of Cuba, a country where Juan Miguel could be arrested for taking a position contrary to the position of Fidel Castro, our government determined that Juan Miguel was speaking of his own free will. May I remind you that, in her March 23, 2000 address to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, Secretary Albright stated to all present that ''the Castro regime continues to suppress dissent, deny free speech, outlaw free assembly, and harass human rights advocates and others who seek independence of action and thought.'' Indeed, one of the stated goals of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Human Rights commission is to ''speak the truth about countries which have particularly violated human rights this year ... such as ... Cuba.''

 You have indicated that based on your meeting with Juan Miguel this past Friday, you too have concluded that Juan Miguel is capable of having a ''frank and open'' discussion, and that he is able to freely express his ''sincere'' desires on American soil without coercion.

 I must respectfully disagree with these conclusions. In the first place, I am not aware of any professional qualifications that either you or the two government representatives possess which would qualify any one of you to make such a determination. to the contrary, I can tell you that Juan Miguel has repeatedly told many of us in his family that he is desirous of coming to the United States. He often blames his father, my brother, for holding him back from leaving for the United States because of my brother's reluctance to also leave for the United States. He has indicated to members of my family that he was attempting to sell his car so that he could buy a boat that would bring him to the United States. Immediately after Elian's arrival, and prior to Castro's politicizing of this issue, he told my sister in Miami that he was going to begin the paperwork for, and was enlisting her assistance in, the filing of visa applications for himself, his wife and child so that they could join us in Miami.

 Make no mistake, the fact that he is in our country today does not in any way relieve him of the pressures and coercion that Castro exerts over all of his subjects. He is residing in the home of a Cuban government official and is under the watchful eye of Cuban security personnel. More importantly, there are multiple examples of Castro committing acts of retribution against the family members of Cubans who perform the ''unimaginable'' and illegal act of speaking against him or his government (they are one and the same) or choose to defect from his totalitarian regime. Remember what happened a couple of years ago to last year's World Series hero, El Duque, when his brother Livan decided to defect to the United States. Need I remind you that Juan Miguel's father, mother, brother and numerous other relatives are still being held ''hostage'' in Cuba?

 From the day that INS entrusted Elian to me in order to care for him, my family and I have devoted ourselves to making sure that Elian receives all of the love and care that he deserves and the our beloved Elizabet would have wished for him to have. My family's goal continues to be the best interests of Elian. If you share my family's goal, we urge you to consider the expert psychological reports that have been in the possession of the government for several weeks, or alternatively, secure your own comprehensive evaluations. We ask that you heed President Clinton's request that the legal process be permitted to ''play itself out'' by not depriving Elian access to our judicial system. We plead with you to arrange a private meeting, at a neutral location, between Juan Miguel and his wife and members of my family. This meeting should take place without any intervention whatsoever of any government official, theirs or ours, lawyers, media or anyone else, only family. As you must know by now, my brother Delfin, Juan Miguel's godfather, flew to Washington this past week to meet with Juan Miguel. Juan Miguel has refused, or has not been allowed, to meet with him. In keeping with your statement that this is a ''nation of laws,'' we ask that you agree that we be permitted to have our day in court so that the long overdue determination of Elian's best interests can fairly and justly be made under our system of laws. Finally in order for my family to rest during these very difficult times, we again ask for your guarantee that the government has no plans for, and does not intend to conduct, a raid on our modest home.

 My family is willing to honor your request that we meet at the location you have designated with your experts on Monday, April 10, at 2:30 p.m. Regrettably however, my daughter Marisleysis was admitted to a local hospital earlier today. Because I suspect that the experts would very much like to meet with her, and because it is my family's wish that all of us be present at the meeting together, I would request that the meeting be scheduled on a tentative basis. Of course, I will keep you informed of her condition regularly so as to avoid any inconvenience to all concerned. Prior to the meeting, I would request that you have someone contact me and advise me as to whether there is anything we need to bring to the meeting. Additionally, in light of the fact that Elian will not be with us at the meeting, I would like an estimate of the proposed length of the meeting.

 Sincerely,

 Lazaro Gonzalez