Cancer Charity to Get Leftover Funds for Elian

The remaining money in a fund used in the attempt to keep Elian Gonzalez in the United States will be turned over to a cancer charity, trustees said.

The Elian Gonzalez Defense Fund collected $210,000 to fight the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s order that the 6-year-old shipwreck survivor be returned to his father in Cuba. After seven months of legal wrangling, the courts sided with the INS, and Elian’s father took him home June 28.

Once the fund finishes paying off legal expenses next month, the remainder, likely between $50,000 and $60,000, will be donated to the Miami-based League Against Cancer, fund trustee Dulce Cuetera said. The charity helps about 5,000 indigent cancer patients annually, many of them children.

“We picked the league because they are a great charity and they help children and, in this case, it seemed fitting,” Cuetera said Friday.

Elian was found off the coast of Florida on Thanksgiving Day after the boat he was on with his mother capsized. His mother and 10 others leaving Cuba for the United States drowned during the crossing.