By Sue Anne Pressley and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 7, 2000; Page A02
MIAMI, Jan. 6—Attorney General Janet Reno declined today to reverse
a decision by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to return
6-year-old Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba, as hundreds of Cuban
Americans took to the streets of this city in a mostly peaceful but
determined protest.
"Based on all the information we have to date, I see no reason to reverse
the decision," Reno said at her regular Thursday news briefing in
Washington, responding to a formal request to intervene by the legal team
representing Elian's Miami relatives.
"What [the INS] took into consideration is who, under the law, can speak
for the 6-year-old boy, who really can't speak for himself," she said.
"He
has a father. And there is a bond between father and son that the law
recognizes and tries to honor."
The fate of the child has become an international dispute--and a sore point
among many Cuban exiles here--since he was found drifting in an inner
tube on Thanksgiving Day a few miles off the Florida coast. Elian's mother
and nine others drowned when their boat capsized as they attempted to
reach the United States. A custody fight ensued when Elian's father in
Cuba, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, and Fidel Castro's government demanded
the boy's return. The INS decision Wednesday set a deadline of Jan. 14
for that to occur, sparking demonstrations today that paralyzed traffic
in
downtown Miami.
Protesters blocked the entrance to the bustling Port of Miami, disrupting
business for more than an hour before Miami-Dade police in full riot gear
moved in to make dozens of arrests. On the busy thoroughfares, including
the roads leading to Miami International Airport, supporters slowed to
20
mph.
At a rally in front of the Claude Pepper Federal Building, demonstrators
broke through police barricades and flooded the streets, forcing traffic
to a
standstill. They waved American and Cuban flags and shouted, "Free
Elian!" A handful of hunger strikers took up a vigil under a makeshift
tent,
vowing not to eat until the child is allowed to remain here. Many of the
protesters agreed that Elian's case should be decided in family court.
"This is our way of sending a strong message to the Clinton administration
that we demand for the child Elian Gonzalez his day in court," said Ramon
Saul Sanchez of the anti-communist Democracy Movement, an organizer
of today's protests who was among the first of 100 people to be arrested.
Many of the demonstrators said they blame President Clinton for what they
described as kowtowing to Castro. One sign in the crowd read, "Castro
Gives Orders to Clinton, and Clinton Obeys."
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush wrote to Clinton seeking a reversal of the INS
decision.
Officials in Washington and Havana said today that there had been no
further action on the case, and U.S. sources were puzzled by the failure
of
attorneys for Elian's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, and other relatives
in
Miami to file a legal challenge they had threatened Wednesday, should they
get no satisfaction from Reno.
Cuban representatives in Washington said they, too, were waiting on the
next move. "We think that [the INS decision] was a big step, a significant
one," a senior Cuban official said today. "But what we need now is to have
the enforcement of that decision. . . . Our concern is the same. Time
passes, and the child is still in Miami."
A reference to the ruling on state television Wednesday in Cuba, where
a
reported 3 million people rallied for Elian's return, warned against
"excessive optimism." But Havana has issued no official statement.
Politicians on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, however, had plenty
to say about the decision, with Republican candidates--Texas Gov.
George W. Bush, Arizona Sen. John McCain and businessman Steve
Forbes--criticizing the decision as a mistake and using the opportunity
to
denounce the Clinton administration policy toward the Cuban government.
"The only people who have been sent back to Cuba in the past are
criminals," McCain said.
Vice President Gore, also campaigning in New Hampshire, seemed to be
distancing himself from the ruling. Without expressly disavowing the INS
decision, Gore said he wants the appeals process to go forward and
repeated his position that no decision about the boy's fate should be made
until the father can speak on "free soil." He said he is not convinced
the
father was not coerced by the Castro regime.
But Democratic candidate Bill Bradley effectively ducked the question,
saying that when the controversy began, "I thought Elian Gonzalez should
stay in the United States, but I'm not going to second-guess the INS."
Those members of Congress who felt moved to issue statements on the
decision were near-uniformly divided along party lines, with Democrats
generally supportive and Republicans critical. Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), who had vowed to introduce
a bill granting the boy immediate U.S. citizenship as soon as Congress
reconvenes in two weeks, said he would forge ahead anyway. "That way,
when he is old enough to make decisions for himself, he will be able to
claim the freedom his mother purchased for him with her life," Helms said.
In the meantime, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) urged the House
Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), to
issue a subpoena to Elian to block his return to Cuba until after Congress
could make him a U.S. citizen, and a spokesman said Burton would
seriously consider the idea, the Miami Herald reported.
The focus of all of this attention, young Elian Gonzalez, who had begun
classes this week at a private school in Miami, was kept away from school
today, relatives told reporters.
If and when a decision is made by the Miami relatives to relinquish the
boy,
the National Council of Churches may help. Representatives of the group
met with the father and Elian's grandparents in their hometown of
Cardenas, Cuba, earlier this week, and the council issued a statement
today that said, "We were told the Cuban family will request that we bring
the boy back. . . . We remain ready and willing to do this."
INS spokesman Russ Bergeron confirmed today that Juan Miguel
Gonzalez had requested the council "to serve as his intermediary" in the
return of Elian. Although Gonzalez did not reject a possible trip to Miami
himself, Bergeron said, he made it clear he wanted the council involved.
But as the afternoon rush hour unfolded here, with car horns bleating in
protest of the INS ruling and demonstrators blocking many major
thoroughfares throughout the city, few of the anti-Cuban protesters seemed
ready to give up their fight to keep the boy here.
"There's no freedom in Cuba," said 22-year-old Web site designer
Michael Glynn. "I perfectly understand a father-son relationship, but here,
he can have freedom."
Pressley reported from Miami, DeYoung from Washington. Staff writers
David A. Vise in Washington and David Von Drehle and John F. Harris in
New Hampshire and special correspondent Catharine Skipp in Miami
contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2000 The Washington Post Company