Relatives File Elian Appeal

Lawyers for Elian Gonzalez’s Miami relatives made a last-ditch appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court Monday to prevent the boy from returning to Cuba and to get him an asylum hearing.

They filed an emergency request asking Justice Anthony M. Kennedy to order Elian to remain in the U.S. while the Supreme Court considers their appeal. Otherwise, an injunction preventing the boy’s return to Cuba will expire at 4 p.m. EDT Wednesday.

Last Friday, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta refused to reconsider its ruling that Immigration and Naturalization Service officials acted properly by denying the 6-year-old an asylum hearing. That court upheld the INS decision that only Elian’s father may speak for the boy.

Elian survived a November 1999 migrant voyage from Cuba in which his mother and 10 others died. Rescued at sea, he initially stayed in Miami with the family of his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, who filed the Supreme Court appeal. Elian’s father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, asked that the boy be sent home to Cuba.