By MARIKA LYNCH, EUNICE PONCE AND ALFONSO CHARDY

 Frustrated that Elian Gonzalez's grandmothers have been unable to see
 him, the Immigration and Naturalization Service suddenly toughened its
 stance Tuesday by ordering the boy's local relatives to take him to a visit
 with the women today in Miami Beach.

 Late Tuesday, the Miami relatives agreed to the meeting, breaking the
 impasse that has existed since the grandmothers, Mariela Quintana and
 Raquel Rodriguez, arrived in the U.S. last week.

 Under the INS order, Elian will meet them for two hours beginning at 4
 p.m. at the Miami Beach home of Barry University President Sister
 Jeanne O'Laughlin, where late Tuesday television crews had already
 begun to set up equipment.

 The agreement was reached under an implicit threat that INS could review
 the parole arrangements that allow Elian to stay in the home of great-uncle
 Lazaro Gonzalez, who had been insisting that the reunion occur at his Little
 Havana house.

 ''We don't believe there is a legal basis in INS' demand to respond
 or Elian's parole would be breached, but we did not want to take
 the risk and cause more unrest in this community,'' said Roger
 Bernstein, one of the Miami family lawyers. ''Further,'' he added,
 ''we want Elian to visit with his grandmothers, which has been our
 goal all along.''

 Failure to comply could have resulted in INS taking the child from the
 Miami family, and perhaps placing him in foster care, Bernstein said.

 In other developments Tuesday:

Quintana and Rodriguez spent the day in Washington, D.C., lobbying on
 Capitol Hill for congressional support in their quest to see and take Elian
 back to Cuba. Miami relatives Lazaro Gonzalez, his daughter Marisleysis
 Gonzalez and niece Georgina Cid prepared their own lobbying trip to
 Washington. Snowstorms that closed airports in the Northeast and the
 INS order forced them to change plans.

 President Clinton, meanwhile, left open the possibility of vetoing any
 congressional bill granting citizenship to the shipwrecked boy.

 Newly unsealed federal court records showed that Judge James Lawrence
 King stepped down from the case Friday because U.S. Attorney Thomas
 Scott raised concerns about King's indirect link to a political consultant
 who is helping the Gonzalez family and his busy trial schedule. King's son,
 a county court judge, has hired Gonzalez family spokesman Armando
 Gutierrez to run his reelection campaign.

 The INS letter broke a stalemate between the grandmothers and the
 Miami relatives over the circumstances of the meeting with Elian. As
 late as Tuesday morning, Miami family spokesman Gutierrez told
 reporters that Lazaro Gonzalez had not changed his mind.

 In the letter, the INS said Lazaro Gonzalez refused two offers of neutral
 meeting sites, including his brother's home, and declined to come up with
 an alternative. INS officials and the letter said it was Gonzalez's stance
 that prompted the order to bring the boy to O'Laughlin's house today.

 ''Failure to contact [the INS] by 3:30 p.m. today will be construed as
 a refusal to make Elian available for the meeting and as a breach of
 Elian's parole,'' it said. ''Please be assured that this meeting is only a
 visit, and will not change Elian's present placement in the care of
 Lazaro Gonzalez.''

 STANDOFF

 A meeting between the grandmothers and Elian had seemed possible
 Monday. But after five hours of tense negotiations Monday at Kendall-
 Tamiami Executive Airport, the grandmothers reboarded their plane and
 flew back to Washington just as Lazaro Gonzalez and other Miami family
 members arrived at the terminal to see the women.

 While the grandmothers left without seeing Elian, some officials of the
 National Council of Churches -- which sponsored the grandmothers'
 trip to the United States -- remained behind in Miami ready to arrange
 another visit.

 The Rev. Bob Edgar, the council's general secretary, and Randy Naylor, the
 organization's director of communications, said that although the council will
 organize today's trip by the grandmothers, the meeting at O'Laughlin's home was
 set up by INS.

 O'Laughlin said she believes she was chosen because of her long-time contacts
 with INS dating back to 1982, when she was appointed to oversee the fate of 200
 Haitian children who were released from the Krome Avenue detention center.

 CALL FROM INS

 O'Laughlin said she received a call from INS Commissioner Doris Meissner at 7
 p.m. Monday. The longtime Miami community activist said she didn't think twice
 about hosting the meeting.

 ''When this community has called anyone to serve, the answer should be yes,''
 O'Laughlin said at an impromptu news conference outside her home.

 Her palms raised to the sky as if pleading or preaching, O'Laughlin told reporters
 she hoped the meeting could bring a quick resolution to the custody battle.

 ''I know the pain of the exile community,'' she said. ''I know the sorrow of
 separated families. I know the anger of a community and I cannot solve all of
 these problems. But I hope the Lord can use me in this case, and the world can
 be a little more harmonious and loving.''

 O'Laughlin declined to express her views on whether Elian should be returned to
 his father.

 THE PLAN

 According to O'Laughlin, the grandmothers and the Miami family will be welcomed
 to the 13-room home -- owned by Barry University -- by O'Laughlin, Sister Peggy
 Albert, Barry's executive vice president, and Sister Leonor J. Esnard, a Barry
 professor and Cuban American who arrived in the United States in 1961 as part of
 the Pedro Pan program for unaccompanied children.

 The grandmothers then will meet alone with Elian in the house's Florida room, a
 brightly colored second-story room with a table and chairs and jalousie windows
 overlooking Indian Creek. O'Laughlin plans to have a few coloring books and
 puzzles on hand, and some snacks.

 While the grandmothers have insisted that they want to take Elian back to Cuba
 with them, the INS said that after the reunion the child can return to Lazaro
 Gonzalez's Little Havana home.

 Bernstein said one of the reasons the Miami family resisted taking Elian to see
 the grandmothers away from their Little Havana home was a fear he could be
 ''snatched and forcibly repatriated to Cuba.''

 The Miami relatives said they are nervous about today's visit because the
 guarantee that Elian would remain in Miami comes from the INS -- an agency
 they distrust.

 ''The only guarantee we have is from someone whom we can't trust,'' said a
 sobbing Marisleysis Gonzalez, Lazaro's 21-year-old daughter.

 A source familiar with the grandmothers' travel arrangements said they planned to
 return to Washington after seeing Elian today, and return to Cuba by Friday.

 Herald staff writers Juan O. Tamayo and Jasmine Kripalani contributed to this
 story.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald