ANDRES VIGLUCCI

 The Cuban government has formally asked the Clinton administration for the
 names of Cubans who have landed on U.S. shores in recent days, with particular
 emphasis on some two dozen minors -- raising fears in the Clinton administration
 that President Fidel Castro may be searching for ``another Elián.''

 NO NAMES

 Immigration officials said they will not disclose the names, citing policies and
 privacy laws that restrict release of information about people who seek U.S.
 refuge.

 U.S. State Department officials said the Cuban diplomatic note appears to be the
 latest wrinkle in a post-Elián campaign against U.S. laws and policies the Cuban
 government says encourage illegal departures from the island by granting special
 status to Cuban immigrants.

 The Cuban government note, citing press reports, asks for information on more
 than 170 Cubans, including 22 minors, who had reached U.S. soil during the
 preceding week.

 The presumption, one State Department official said, is that some of the 22
 minors may have parents or guardians back in Cuba willing to demand their
 return.

 ``They are making an effort on this to search for a new Elián, to keep up, from
 their perspective, the excitement they had over Elián,'' the official said, referring to
 the 6-year-old boy who was the subject of a custody struggle between his
 relatives in Miami and his father in Cuba.

 Castro has explicitly sought to blame the Elián saga and other illegal departures
 from the island on U.S. laws such as the Cuban Adjustment Act and the
 so-called ``dry-foot'' policy that allows Cubans who reach U.S. soil to remain in
 the country.

 Wednesday, Castro bitterly complained in a speech to the Cuban National
 Assembly in Havana that the United States was ``not interested'' in helping Cuba
 curb illegal smuggling.

 U.S. BLAMED

 ``The government of the United States gives Cuba absolutely no information [and]
 is not interested in offering a single bit of information about these cases,'' Castro
 said after reading to the Assembly press accounts about recent smuggling
 incidents.

 Castro blamed ``the murderous [Cuban] Adjustment Act'' of 1966 for the increase
 in illegal migration from Cuba. The National Assembly on Wednesday issued two
 proclamations demanding the repeal of the Adjustment Act and the Helms-Burton
 Act of 1996, which tightened the U.S. trade embargo on the island.

 One of the proclamations states that Washington ``has permitted the vile
 business of people-smuggling to flourish . . . and takes no effective measures to
 combat it.''

 U.S. immigration authorities say they have taken measures to deter smuggling,
 including beefing up Border Patrol staffing in the Florida Keys, that have resulted
 in the arrest of half a dozen suspected smugglers in the past two weeks.

 But they say they cannot release the names of anyone who is not criminally
 charged.

 ``U.S. law and Justice Department policy establishes a right of privacy for
 individuals and restricts the release of information without their permission,'' said
 Russ Bergeron, spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in
 Washington.