WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. immigration officials, after interviewing the
                  father of Elian Gonzalez in Cuba, have begun a high-level review of the case
                  of the 6-year-old boy at the center of an international dispute.

                  The review is headed by Immigration and Naturalization Service General
                  Counsel Owen Cooper, who is expected to make a recommendation to
                  INS Commissioner Doris Meissner on whether the child should be returned
                  to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, in Cuba.

                  The interview was conducted by INS agents in Havana. Elian is now in
                  Miami with relatives.

                  Elian was rescued from the Atlantic Ocean on Thanksgiving Day. Elian, his
                  mother and 12 others had left Cuba for the United States aboard a boat that
                  sank off the Florida coast. His mother was one of 10 people aboard the boat
                  who died.

                  Relative writes to Hillary Clinton

                  A Miami cousin fighting for custody of Elian wrote a letter to Hillary Rodham
                  Clinton on Wednesday, urging her to use her clout as first lady to help.

                  "We beg you now as a mother, to be the first lady that truly crosses all ethnic
                  barriers and speaks out for the children," Marisleysis Gonzalez wrote. "Please,
                  please help."

                  Elian's father, who was divorced from Elian's mother, wants him sent home
                  to Cuba. Marisleysis Gonzalez and other relatives in Miami say Elian should
                  stay in the United States rather than grow up under communism.

                  Although the INS is an arm of the Justice Department, officials say the final
                  decision is expected to be made by Meissner, not Attorney General Janet
                  Reno.

                  There is no timetable for the review, said INS spokesman Russ Bergeron on
                  Wednesday. He said he would not speculate about when a final decision
                  would be reached.

                  U.S. authorities acknowledge a government decision to repatriate the boy to
                  Cuba would likely trigger court action by the youth's relatives in Florida
                  challenging the decision. Government lawyers say litigation in both federal
                  and state courts in similar cases has sometimes delayed resolution of such
                  cases for several years.

                   Elian's case has raised hackles on both sides of the bitter ideological divide
                   between Cuba and exile enemies of Cuban President Fidel Castro. Havana has
                   demanded that Elian be sent back and has mobilized thousands of Cubans in
                   demonstrations calling for his return.

                   President Clinton has said he does not want politics to interfere with the
                   custody decision.

                   Marisleysis Gonzalez said in her letter to the first lady, "We asked your
                   husband to step in and consider Elian's fate" but that they were still waiting.

                  She questioned whether political pressure from Castro had kept the United
                  States from "giving Elian the proper human rights."

                  In the letter, Marisleysis Gonzalez also wrote, "I ask you as a mother to
                  remember Elian's mother's will, that she wanted him to grow up in the United
                  States and enjoy the possibilities that America affords us all ... Don't let his
                  mother's will be gone in the Atlantic waters. Let him stay in a free country."

                  Copies of the letter were distributed to the media on Wednesday as Elian's
                  Miami relatives took him to visit a private elementary school where they
                  hope to enroll him.

                  Exiles gather for Mass

                  Cuban exiles gathered at the Ermita de la Caridad church in Coconut Grove,
                  Florida, for a Mass to celebrate Elian's rescue and to pray for divine help in
                  keeping him in Miami.

                  But Max Castro, a Cuba expert at the University of Miami, used his weekly
                  column in the Miami Herald newspaper to urge the U.S. government to
                  resist pressure from the exiles to keep the boy in Miami.

                  "Once again, hard-line exiles are using all their clout to drive the U.S.
                  government to adopt a course of action that would fly in the face of law and
                  logic, not to mention larger U.S. interests," Castro wrote.

                  "It is especially ironic that the very people who have clamored loudest for
                  maintaining the embargo on the sale of food to Cuba, which has a negative
                  impact on the welfare of most children there, now are at the forefront of
                  ensuring the future of this one poster child," Castro wrote.

                  A U.S. economic embargo in place against Cuba for 40 years is meant to
                  foster democracy and respect for human rights, Washington says.

                           Producer Terry Frieden and Reuters contributed to this report.