BY CAROL ROSENBERG

 WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration remained firm Thursday that Elian
 Gonzalez should be united with his family in Cuba and pledged to respond next
 week to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in Miami.

 Both Attorney General Janet Reno in her weekly news conference and President
 Clinton in a newspaper interview made it clear they were not having second
 thoughts about the decision by the Immigration and Naturalization Service that
 only Elian's father in Cuba can speak for the boy.

 ``Law, morals, family values that we talk about -- all say that the bond between
 parent and child is one of the most sacred, one of the most important
 relationships there is,'' Reno said. ``I believe that with all my heart and soul with
 respect to the way I grew up. And if . . . I'd inadvertently ended up in another land
 and was told I could not go home, I would have felt deprived.''

 Clinton, in an interview published Thursday, told the Christian Science Monitor:
 ``. . . I think that we need to think long and hard whether we're going to take the
 position that any person who comes to our shores who is a minor, any minor
 child who loses his or her parents, should never be sent home to another parent --
 even if that parent is capable of doing a very good job -- if we don't like the
 government of the country where the people lived.''

 NO THOUGHTS ON VETO

 Clinton also said he did not believe Congress should get involved in the Elian
 battle, but he declined to say whether he would veto any effort by Congress to
 grant the boy U.S. citizenship. ``I haven't thought about it,'' he said.

 Clinton added that the Elian case was far different from Congress' decision to
 confer honorary U.S. citizenship on Winston Churchill, for example. ``I don't think
 they [Congress] should put themselves in the position of making a decision that
 runs contrary to what the people who have had to do all the investigation have
 done.''

 A Justice Department source said the administration was still deciding just how it
 would counter the lawsuit filed in Miami by the relatives who have cared for Elian
 soon after he was found clinging to an inner tube off Fort Lauderdale Nov. 25. The
 suit names Reno and Immigration Commissioner Doris Meissner as defendants
 and asks the court to order the INS to give the child a political asylum hearing.

 ATTORNEYS' OPTIONS

 Justice Department attorneys could argue that the court has no jurisdiction or
 they could challenge the lawsuit itself.

 Reno and INS Commissioner Doris Meissner have said the child cannot have an
 asylum hearing because his legal guardian, his father, does not want the hearing.

 Reno is monitoring every phase of the fight over Elian, officials said. Lawyers from
 the policy wing of Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder were directing the strategy
 planning and analysis, and briefing Reno frequently.

 Justice sources also said the Office of the General Counsel also was still
 studying the subpoena issued Jan. 7 by Indiana Rep. Dan Burton, a Republican,
 who ordered the child to appear before his House Oversight Committee on Feb.
 10 as a means of blocking his early return.

 At issue is whether the government can ignore the subpoena, and still return the
 child to Cuba before that date.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald