BY JAY WEAVER

 U.S. officials Tuesday belittled the renewed custody claim for Elian Gonzalez by his
 Miami relatives as an ''attack'' orchestrated to stall or block a government decision
 ordering them to hand over the boy to his Cuban father.

 They urged state Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey to throw out the relatives' temporary
 custody petition along with an emergency protective order that was issued by a
 previous family court judge.

 That earlier order sought to prevent the 6-year-old from leaving Miami-Dade County
 until a court hearing on his father's fitness as a parent. But Attorney General Janet Reno
 declared the order carried no legal weight.

 ''A father should not have to await further state court proceedings to get his son back,
 when [U.S. officials] already have determined that they should be reunited,'' according
 to government court papers filed Tuesday. ''The father is harmed by having to wait.
 His son is harmed by having to wait.''

 The Miami relatives on Saturday asked Bailey to continue that emergency protective
 order and conduct a temporary custody hearing within 10 days. On Tuesday,
 prompted by concerns raised by Bailey, they filed more papers supporting their
 claim for custody.

 DECISION PENDING

 Celina Rios, a spokeswoman for the family court, said the judge has not made up
 her mind and will soon issue her decision.

 Bailey canceled the originally scheduled hearing last month while the relatives
 pursued a lawsuit in federal court that challenged the government's decision to
 deny the boy's request for a political asylum claim.

 Fearing they will get no satisfaction in their federal court appeal, the relatives'
 lawyers rushed over to Miami family court Tuesday to revive their custody petition.

 Elian's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, who is seeking temporary custody of the
 boy, fears that the Immigration and Naturalization Service will force him to turn
 over the child to his father in a matter of days and they will return to Cuba
 immediately.

 The great-uncle alleges that because the father wants to raise his son in Cuba, he
 is subjecting him to the abuse of Fidel Castro's dictatorship.

 ''The one thing that hasn't been considered is the best interest of the boy in state
 court,'' Gonzalez family attorney Eduardo Rasco said. ''We are trying to get
 Elian's side of the story told.''

 MENTAL EXPERTS

 Rasco, along with attorney Laura Fabar, said that the INS refuses to let its team
 of mental-health experts evaluate Elian before the great-uncle transfers the boy to
 his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who is staying near Washington, D.C.

 Lazaro Gonzalez's attorneys said that their psychologists have determined that
 Elian would be traumatized by the transfer and relocation to Cuba, where they
 say Castro would use the boy as a puppet for his communist revolution and force
 him to denounce his mother. The boy's mother drowned along with 10 others
 fleeing Cuba in late November.

 ''We think it is wrong to place the boy in the clutches of Fidel Castro,'' Rasco
 said.

 In court papers, he urged Bailey to find Elian's father in default in the family court
 dispute because he has refused to respond to the great-uncle's suit.

 But Bailey, in an order filed Sunday, hinted that she had serious doubts she could
 even consider Gonzalez's temporary custody claim because the federal court
 decision supersedes any state court jurisdiction. The judge also said she did not
 even think that the great-uncle could seek custody under Florida law.

 CHILD'S INTERESTS

 Under Florida law, custody can be taken away from a child's sole surviving parent
 only if the parent is proven unfit by ''clear and convincing evidence.'' The child's
 best interests are considered when the dispute is between two parents -- not
 between a parent and a nonparent.

 The INS already found, after two interviews with Elian's father, that Juan Miguel
 Gonzalez had a close, loving relationship with the child. The agency's decision,
 backed by Reno, said the INS could not consider the asylum applications made
 for Elian by his relatives because his father asked that they be withdrawn.

 U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore ruled last month that the INS and Reno did
 not abuse their broad powers in immigration disputes when they reached this
 conclusion.

 ''Lazaro seeks an alternative means of preventing Elian's return to Cuba, by
 asking the [family] court to find Juan Gonzalez unfit as a parent because he
 wishes to raise his son in his native Cuba,'' wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Dexter
 Lee in the government's response to the custody petition.

 ''The attorney general met personally with Juan Gonzalez on [Friday], and has
 decided to move forward on reuniting father with son. [Federal] preemption bars
 any action by this court that would serve to undermine that decision.''

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald