Boy Belongs With Cuban Father

That a 6-year-old boy whose mother has just died should go to the custody of his father is what law, custom and decency will usually dictate. So why hasn’t that happened in the case of Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban child who was smuggled by boat across the Florida Straits and washed ashore in America when the boat capsized on Thanksgiving Day?

Sadly, the boy has become a political prize in a tug of war between Havana Cubans and Miami Cubans. What ought to be about care and mourning has become a farce. Once again it seems that any issue touching the relationship between Cuba and the United States will be twisted for advantage by pro-Castro Cubans and anti-Castro immigrants.

The Justice Department has indicated that the Immigration and Naturalization Service will make the final decision on whether to return the child to Cuba once it has all available evidence. That’s a fair approach, but consider that a kid from any country other than Cuba would have been returned immediately. In the meantime, lawyers for the boy’s relatives in Miami are saying they will go to court to try to block the boy’s return to Cuba.

While justice creeps forward, the boy has been taken in by the Miami relatives and displayed in countless toy-filled photo ops. His father in Cuba is being used by the Castro regime as a symbol of American brutality. The INS should move with deliberate speed to its decision, the sooner the better for a confused little boy.