By EDWARD WONG

          Family members of Elián González filed an emergency motion today to
          try and speed up an appeals process that could ultimately block the United States
          government from sending the 6-year-old boy back to Cuba.

          The motion, filed by lawyers this morning with the 11th District Federal Circuit
          Court of Appeals in Atlanta, is a request to schedule briefings and oral arguments.

          Lazaro González, Elián's grand-uncle, and other relatives are appealing to
          overturn a decision last week by a federal district court in Miami that said
          only the United States attorney general can grant the boy political asylum. In that
          March 22 ruling, Judge K. Michael Moore dismissed a lawsuit filed by Mr.
          González to try and compel immigration officials to grant Elián an asylum hearing.

          Lawyers for Mr. González filed an appeal with the Atlanta court immediately
          after Judge Moore's ruling.

          Attorney General Janet Reno said last week that the government will
          work quickly to re-unite the boy with his father, Juan Miguel González,
          who lives in Cuba. But many Cuban-Americans who oppose Fidel
          Castro's Communist regime are pushing for the United States government
          to keep the boy in this country, pointing to the fact that Elián's mother
          took her son with her on a desperate flight from her homeland. The
          mother and 10 other Cubans died in November when a smuggling boat
          capsized, but fishermen found Elián floating off the Florida coast in an
          inner tube.

          Today's motion does not prevent the government from deporting Elián,
          but simply asks for the court to speed up the appeals process. Ms. Reno
          has said that she can return Elián to his father before the appellate
          arguments begin, but she has not given a timetable.

          The judge who will consider the motion has not been assigned, said
          Thomas K. Kahn, the court clerk. He also said there was no way to tell
          exactly how long it will take for the judge to act on the motion.

          "To what extent the court will act on it, I don't know," Mr. Kahn said in a
          telephone interview. "It will happen fairly expeditiously."

          In an apparent attempt to drum up more support for blocking Elián's
          return, the boy's Miami relatives allowed ABC's Diane Sawyer to
          interview the boy in his private school last week. The interview was
          broadcast today on "Good Morning America." Elián said through
          interpreters that he remembered water rushing into the boat, then falling
          asleep after his mother placed him in an inner tube.

          "My mother is not in heaven, not lost," he said through his cousin
          Marisleysis González. "She must have been picked up here in Miami
          somewhere. She must have lost her memory, and just doesn't know I'm
          here."

          In the interview, Elián used crayons to draw the waves that lapped water
          into the boat. He sketched himself as a stick figure in an inner tube, with a
          dolphin leaping above nearby waves.

          In a speech given in Havana on Sunday, Fidel Castro said subjecting the
          boy to the interview was "monstrous and sickening."

          "I sincerely think that this boy is at risk in the hands of desperate people
          and the government of the United States should not be running this risk,"
          Mr. Castro said, according to The Associated Press.

          Since November, Cuban-Americans who fled from Mr. Castro's
          government have lobbied politicians, paid for expensive media
          advertisements and staged protests across the country. Demonstrations
          have intensified since Judge Moore's ruling last week, and about 100
          protesters gathered outside Elián's Miami home today.

          Judge Moore's ruling came as a major blow to the boy's relatives in
          Miami. Their lawyers had argued before the judge that Elián had been
          denied the due process granted to other people who come to the United
          States seeking asylum. But in his 50-page ruling, Judge Moore said that
          "the determination to grant asylum is a matter within the discretion of the
          attorney general."

          President Clinton has said he supports the January decision reached by
          immigration officials to return Elián to Cuba. Those officials argued that
          the boy was too young to apply for asylum and that only a parent or
          guardian could file for him. They said the wishes of the boy's father
          should be respected over those of his grand-uncle.

          Last week, Senator Connie Mack, a Republican from Florida, asked the
          Immigration and Naturalization Service to put off returning the boy until
          Congress could consider a bill that would grant United States citizenship
          to Elián. Mr. Mack sponsored the bill in the Senate.

          But in his ruling, Judge Moore emphasized the need to return Elián to
          Cuba as soon as possible. He said that "even this well-intended litigation
          has the capacity to bring about unintended harm," and that "each passing
          day is a day lost between Juan González and his son."