It Keeps Going and Going and . . .

Here we go again. In their determination to somehow keep the boy in the United States, the distant relatives of Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old Cuban castaway, have petitioned a federal appellate court to review a ruling. This is their right, but the only result of a rehearing would be to keep open a wound that long has needed healing.

The appeals court in Atlanta gave the government and lawyers for the boy’s father until Tuesday to respond. Those responses should come promptly: The facts and the law in this case are clear, and continuing damage is being done to the boy and, of course, the American taxpayer. The government’s expense in this case has soared past $6 million.

In a surely futile attempt to change the tide of adverse rulings, the lawyers for the Miami family are now arguing that a three-judge panel erred in ruling against the effort to prevent Elian’s return to Cuba. They also claim there is new evidence of contacts between the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Cuban government regarding the child.

The family’s allegations are aimed at diverting what should have been a simple case of parental custody, but they cast a shadow far wider than that. The ongoing struggle is giving Fidel Castro a platform to rail against his Miami antagonists and has led to increasing polarization of relations between Florida’s Dade County police authorities and the Cuban American community. Is there no point at which the family will accept the outcome of this matter?