Time for Elian’s U.S. Kin to Quit

The drama of Elian Gonzalez has turned another page with a federal appeals court’s decision to not grant a political asylum hearing for the young castaway. The hearing, requested by the child’s Miami relatives, surely would have turned into a legal rant against Cuba and Fidel Castro.

The Elian Gonzalez case always has had much to do with Cuban American politics and little to do with the needs of the 6-year-old, whose mother drowned at sea in an attempt to reach U.S. shores last November, leaving her son to become an unwilling symbol of anti-Castro passion.

The request for the hearing was handled properly by the court, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that affirmed the January decisions of both the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Justice Department and a March decision by a U.S. district court.

Thursday’s ruling extends for 14 days an injunction requiring that the boy remain in the United States. This delay allows for new appeals, but surely it is evident that the cause of the Miami relatives has come to the end of its road. We call on the family not to appeal. It’s high time for Elian to go back to a normal life in Cuba with his father, stepmother and half brother.

The images in this case will linger: Elian riding his bike in Miami, the sensational seizure by heavily armed Justice Department agents. But more important is the fact that U.S. law has been steadily applied. Such a rule of law is a notion foreign to Fidel Castro. For the rest of the world it should demonstrate the value of an independent judiciary.