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Tuesday, January 25, 2000 Page: 8A
The last thing poor Elian Gonzalez needs is 535 more adults meddling in his
life. The 6-year-old rescued from the sea after a shipwreck that killed his
mother and several others fleeing Cuba has become a cause celebre for
anti-Castro groups, presidential candidates and now the U.S. Congress.
As the House and Senate convene this week, several members have proposed
granting Elian U.S. citizenship. The maneuver would remove the case from the
jurisdiction of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which has ordered
the boy returned to Cuba, and set the stage for a March 6 hearing on Elian’s
custody in a Florida court.
Giving Elian his “day in court” might seem like the fair-and-square,
American thing to do, until you consider that the Florida judge who ordered
the hearing has political ties to a spokesman for the boy’s Florida-based
relatives. Her honor once paid the spokesman $10,000 to act as a campaign
consultant.
That’ll teach Castro and his commies a thing or two about democracy and the
rule of law, won’t it?
The case of Elian Gonzalez has already become politicized beyond belief,
what with street demonstrations in Havana, freeway blockades in Miami and
constant media exposure abetted by the boy’s stateside relatives.
Anyone who has ever parented a 6-year-old, or even remembers being a
6-year-old, can just imagine the strain, distress and confusion Elian must be
feeling. Having survived the death of his mother and a life-threatening
ordeal, he ends up far from home, pulled between competing camps of adults,
separated from his sole surviving parent.
The proper thing, the responsible thing, the adult thing would be to put an
end to political mischief that has surrounded this case and reunite Elian with
his father as soon as possible. Reports by reputable news organizations
indicate that Elian would live a safe, and by Cuban standards, comfortable,
life in Havana, cared for by his closest relatives, including two grandmothers
who have pleaded for his return.
The congressional move to grant Elian citizenship is just one more example
of the cynicism of U.S. policy on Cuba and Cuban immigrants. We trade with and
support dictators far more authoritarian than Castro, bad as he is. Yet we
maintain an embargo that has never achieved its stated goal of weakening the
Castro regime even as it punishes the common Cuban. We have a
multiple-personality refugee policy that sends some refugees back to Havana,
some behind barbed wire and some to the Major Leagues.
And now some of our political leaders are willing to wrest a first-grader
from his father in order to score election-year points and mollify Florida’s
powerful anti-Castro lobby. Anyone who doubts our skeptical view of efforts to
grant Elian Gonzalez U.S. citizenship ought to ask themselves one simple
question:
Who do you think has the boy’s best interests at heart? The U.S. Congress
or his grandmothers?