INS: Move is not advisable

 BY JAY WEAVER

 Immigration officials Friday turned down the request of Elian Gonzalez's father in Cuba to
 have his son moved from the home of his great-uncle to the temporary care of another
 relative in Miami.

 The Immigration and Naturalization Service said in a letter to Juan Miguel Gonzalez that it
 would be ill-advised to move the 6-year-old Cuban rafter now, but the agency promised
 again to reunite him with his father.

 In a statement describing the letter, the agency said it told Juan Gonzalez that ``transferring
 Elian temporarily to a new and unfamiliar environment would not be advisable for the child
 after already experiencing the trauma of leaving his home in Cuba and losing his mother.

 ``Instead, INS will continue to focus its efforts on returning Elian to his father.''

 The INS ruled Jan. 5 that the father is the only person who can represent the
 interests of the boy, who lost his mother during Thanksgiving week when their
 boat capsized on a journey from Cuba to Florida. As the only one with authority to
 speak for the minor, Juan Gonzalez has already withdrawn asylum and admission
 applications made on Elian's behalf by his Miami great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez.

 Juan Gonzalez has expressed increasing frustration with the government's failure
 to send his son back. He launched a letter-writing campaign this month pressure
 immigration officials to fulfill their promise, as a lawsuit on the boy's fate awaited a
 key federal court hearing scheduled for Tuesday.

 In particular, the father has wanted INS to move Elian from the Little Havana home
 of Lazaro Gonzalez to that of another great-uncle, Manuel Gonzalez, in Miami. He
 also sought permission to have Cuban officials in Washington visit the boy in his
 Miami home.

 In their response, immigration officials said they shared his concern for the
 welfare of the boy. They promised to obtain information from Lazaro Gonzalez
 about any psychiatrist or psychologist seeing Elian, and about any treatment
 prescribed for him.

 ``INS will also request information regarding Elian's schooling'' at the private
 Lincoln-Marti Elementary School in Little Havana, the agency statement said.

 The agency acknowledged to the father that it was aware of past drunk-driving
 convictions of Lazaro Gonzalez, but indicated that ``the information INS has at
 present does not suggest that [his] home is not an adequate environment for
 Elian's temporary care at this time.''

 While the INS declined to make public its letter to the father, the agency said in
 its statement issued Friday that it wanted to resolve the immigration dispute over
 his son in federal court. Lazaro Gonzalez sued the INS in an attempt to block its
 decision to return Elian to Cuba, and to force the agency to give the boy a
 political asylum hearing.

 Senior U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler will hear arguments from both sides
 Tuesday on whether he has jurisdiction in the case.

 On Friday, Justice Department attorneys reiterated their position that Hoeveler
 has no authority to hear the relatives' suit because the INS has final say over
 immigration matters involving a refugee such as Elian who has not been legally
 admitted into the United States.

 The attorneys argue that INS Commissioner Doris Meissner and Attorney General
 Janet Reno's decision to return the boy to his father is ``protected from judicial
 review.''

 ``Something is gravely wrong if a father cannot obtain the return of his motherless
 six-year-old child from a foreign country because the father has to abide by a
 great-uncle's determination to pursue litigation through three levels of
 administrative review and then federal court review,'' the attorneys wrote in their
 final motion on the jurisdiction question. ``Such reviews can take years.''

 But the legal team for Elian's Miami relatives counter that an ``unadmitted alien''
 such as the Cuban rafter still has a right to an asylum hearing under the
 Constitution.

 If Hoeveler rules he has jurisdiction, the judge will hold a hearing on the merits of
 the suit during the week of March 6.

 On Friday, the high-profile case hovered over Reno's visit to Miami.

 The attorney general made a brief appearance in the afternoon to speak at an
 attorneys' awards luncheon in downtown Miami. Outside the Hotel
 InterContinental, demonstrators from various Cuban exile groups waved flags and
 carried signs calling for justice for Elian and for four Brothers to the Rescue pilots
 shot down by Cuban fighters.

 Reno did not comment on Elian, and did not take questions. But she made a
 reference to the protest in her speech, when she described Miami as ``a city
 where you can see that people feel so strongly about the things they care deeply
 about.''

 The case continues to stir strong passions in Miami. Callers to Spanish-language
 radio Thursday denounced Auxiliary Bishop Agustin Roman, who is generally
 revered in the Cuban exile community, for allegedly saying during an interview
 with Channel 51 that the boy should be sent back to his father.

 But in that television interview, Ramon actually said: ``Children belong to their
 parents and their family. The case of Elian should be decided by his family, not
 by the church nor by the community.''

 Herald writer Eunice Ponce also contributed to this story.