INS Rules Boy Will Return to Father in Cuba

A 6-year-old boy rescued at sea--only to land at the center of a politically charged custody battle--should return to his father in Cuba, U.S. immigration officials said Wednesday.

“This little boy, who has been through so much, belongs with his father,” Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner said of Elian Gonzalez--a doe-eyed child plucked from the Atlantic Ocean on Nov. 25 as he drifted alone in an inner tube. His mother, the mother’s boyfriend and eight others drowned when their boat capsized during their attempt to flee Cuba.

The INS ruling brought angry reaction from some Cuban exiles in Miami and tears from relatives with whom the boy has lived for the last six weeks. “I was surprised because I thought this was a place of liberty--and they are not letting him keep his liberty,” said Marisleysis Gonzalez, 21, a second cousin. “His mom risked her life so he could get liberty.”

Spencer Eig, an attorney representing the boy’s Miami relatives, said he has asked U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno in a letter to reverse the decision, which he called “unfair and unconstitutional.”

He vowed to file suit in state and federal courts to halt Elian’s repatriation if Reno does not respond.

Elian, who spent his second day Wednesday at a private Miami school, did not return immediately to his relatives’ home in Little Havana. By late afternoon, hundreds of people had gathered there to protest the INS decision. Many of those same demonstrators had begun the day in front of the INS office on Biscayne Boulevard.

In Havana, state-run television interrupted normal broadcasting to announce the ruling, cautioning Cubans “not to get over-optimistic.”

Meissner set a Jan. 14 deadline for the child to be returned to his 31-year-old father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez of Cardenas, a seaport town about 80 miles east of Havana. Meissner indicated that exactly how the boy will be returned to Cuba should be worked out between his father and relatives here.

“Family reunification has long been a cornerstone of both American immigration law and U.S. practice,” Meissner said during a Washington news conference. “There is no question that Mr. Gonzalez is Elian’s father. Moreover, he has had a close and continuous relationship with his son.”

In two interviews with INS officers in Cuba, Meissner said, Gonzalez “provided vivid details of the nature of the bond they shared.”

The INS “has not uncovered any information that might call into question Mr. Gonzalez’s parental and legal rights,” Meissner said, adding that there was no evidence Gonzalez’s words were being scripted by the Cuban government.

Meissner suggested three scenarios for Elian’s return: His father could come to Miami to pick him up, relatives could escort him home or he could be escorted to the island by a church group or other third party.

President Clinton said Wednesday that the INS had made the right decision. “I told you when we started this that I would do my best to keep this decision out of politics. We have done that,” Clinton said.

But White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart told reporters that he understood the motivations of protesters who believe the boy could have a better life in the United States. “There are certain obvious benefits to anyone to grow up in a society that’s free and open, that enjoys the kind of freedoms that Americans do,” he said. “There are many people around the world who envy the culture and society in which we all live here. But I think there are also many who understand the sanctity of family bonds and how important those are.”

Although the decision to send Elian back was expected, it was greeted with anger and disappointment among many exiles here, who maintain his future in Cuba is so bleak as to override his father’s rights.

About 150 exiles gathered outside the INS office in advance of Meissner’s announcement. From behind police barricades, protesters waved Cuban flags, chanted Elian’s name and expressed their outrage.

On Spanish-language talk radio, callers railed against the decision. “This boy should not become a trophy for Fidel Castro, to be paraded around Cuba,” said Jorge Mas, chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation.

Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) denounced the ruling as “outrageous,” adding: “This should be dealt with by the courts.”

U.S. officials had offered to provide Gonzalez with a visa to come to Miami to make arguments for taking custody of his son. Cuban officials had said they would allow him to leave the island to do so.

But Gonzalez has maintained that he should not have to travel here to retrieve his son.

Francisco Aruca, a Miami radio host who favors normalizing relations with Cuba, suggested coming here “would be risky. [Gonzalez] would be concerned for his safety.”

But others insisted that as long as Gonzalez was in Cuba, subject to Castro’s control, the father’s true sentiments would remain unknown. “All we wanted was for the child to have his day in court,” said Jose Basulto, an ardent Castro foe and founder of the exile group Brothers to the Rescue. “It is very sad.”

Elian left Cardenas on Nov. 21 with his mother, Elizabet Broton Gonzalez, her boyfriend and 10 others in a 17-foot aluminum boat with an outboard motor. The distance from Cuba’s north coast to Miami is about 200 miles. Over the 41 years of Castro’s rule, tens of thousands of Cubans have made similar journeys. And an unknown number have perished.

Elian’s boat was swamped somewhere in the treacherous Gulf Stream, and only Elian and two others survived.

The boy was pulled from the ocean about 20 miles north of Miami on Thanksgiving morning by two fishermen. The other survivors, a man and a woman, were found near Key Biscayne.

After a night in the hospital, Elian was placed in the custody of his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, who lives with his wife and their daughter, Marisleysis.

Because of his dramatic journey and rescue, Elian immediately became a symbol of the ideological Cold War that rages between the Communist government in Cuba and Castro’s foes living in exile in Miami.

Within hours of the boy’s rescue, the Cuban-American National Foundation produced a poster showing Elian being carried into the hospital on a stretcher. Over his face were the words: “Another child victim of Fidel Castro.”

As public pressure mounted, his guardians held daily news conferences and photo opportunities. A lawyer was hired, then a publicist.

Elian was lavished with Christmas gifts. Politicians stopped by. He went to Disney World.

He also talked regularly with his father by telephone. And he visited a Miami psychiatrist.

In Cuba, Castro responded by charging that the child had been kidnapped. He ordered massive street demonstrations outside the U.S. Interests Section in Havana and in other Cuban cities. The Cuban government produced its own “Free Elian” posters and handed out thousands of T-shirts bearing his image.

Meanwhile, in Cardenas, Juan Miguel Gonzalez maintained he had no prior knowledge of his former wife’s plan to leave the island with Elian--and demanded that his son be returned.

Among many foreign journalists and visitors who showed up at Gonzalez’s modest home was the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell of the National Council of Churches. After meeting for hours with Gonzalez and both sets of the boy’s grandparents, Campbell announced: “This is a very loving family. We are more convinced than ever that this child belongs with his family.”

In general, that opinion was shared by child welfare experts, immigration lawyers and others around the United States. A fathers’ rights group, the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, filed a friend of the court brief with the INS in support of Gonzalez’s claim.

But among rabidly anti-Castro exiles, the desires of the boy’s father were outweighed by what they see as the horrors of life in Cuba.

His mother gave up her life to get him here, they said. “Elian will have a better life in the U.S.,” said Marisleysis Gonzalez, a bank loan officer who seems to have become the child’s surrogate mother.

In Washington, Senate Republican leaders last month proposed that Congress grant Elian U.S. citizenship, which he could one day use to return to the U.S. if the INS forces him back to Cuba.

“We won’t have time to pass that legislation now,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.).

Anti-Castro activists in Miami, including Basulto and Ramon Saul Sanchez of the Democracy Movement, vowed to continue protests in the days ahead. “There will be civil disobedience and other actions in the streets,” Basulto said.

Times staff writer Esther Schrader in Washington contributed to this story.

* STANDARD PRACTICE: The U.S. decision on Elian conforms to standards of family law in most countries. A10