Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon News

The drug war gravy train
How the White House rewarded U.S. News, Seventeen and other magazines for publishing anti-drug articles.
By Daniel Forbes
[03/31/00]

Agony in the garden
A California diocese recovers from a sex-abuse scandal, and finds that healing comes through facing the truth.
By John van der Zee
[03/30/00]

Lessons from "Erin Brockovich"
If tort reformers like George W. Bush had their way, greedy corporations like California public utility PG&E would still be poisoning their neighbors.
By Joe Conason
[03/28/00]

Better dead than red, white and blue
By electing Vladimir Putin president, Russians chose a product of the same repressive police state that has cost millions of lives -- because being a superpower is better than being a Western plaything.
By Jeffrey Tayler
[03/28/00]

Vouchers and the law: The rebuttals
In Round 2 of a Salon debate on school vouchers, our experts exchange barbs.
By Daryl Lindsey
[03/28/00]

Complete archives for News

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Though lawyers for Elián's Miami family met for the second day with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and secured an extension until Tuesday of the deadline for the latest legal proceedings, many Cuban exiles have already come to their own verdict: The legal system under President Clinton and Attorney General Reno can not be trusted, and no matter what the federal courts might decide they say they will not honor those decisions.

"Reno killed children in Waco and Clinton marched with people who burned the American flag during Vietnam," said Aguilar's friend, Maria Alonso, 73. "Who are they to speak about justice and patriotism? If justice is done, the boy will stay here."

Reno has stated that only Elián's father, Juan Miguel González, who wants the boy returned to him in Cuba, has the right to speak for the child, and a federal judge upheld that decision last week. But after a television interview with the boy was screened Wednesday, during which Elián told ABC's Diane Sawyer that he didn't want to go back to Cuba, the resolve of some exiles against federal government grew even firmer.

"You heard what the kid said, he doesn't want to go," said Cuban native Ernesto Taylor, 61. "Show me where to stand so I can take the first bullet. I'll defend his right to stay."

The positions taken by those demonstrators, and by some exile leaders, may make a physical confrontation with federal authorities inevitable -- if the case is not taken out of federal hands. In a move that distanced him from his own administration, Vice President Al Gore recommended such a move Thursday.

"It is a matter that should be decided by courts that have the experience and expertise to resolve custody cases," Gore said. "That is why I am urging Congress to immediately pass legislation that is being sponsored by Senators Bob Graham and Bob Smith -- which would grant permanent resident status to Elián, his father, stepmother, half-brother, grandmothers and grandfather, so that this case can be adjudicated properly."

A key Cuban exile leader shared Gore's position. "What Elián needs is for his case to be returned to family court in Miami-Dade County," said Ramon Saul Sanchez, leader of the Cuban exile Democracia Movement. "Elián should be able to speak in open court and tell a judge what he wants, what his life was like in Cuba, to tell the judge if his father hit him, if his father hit his mother, so that a judge can determine exactly what he would be going back to. That's exactly the kind of day in court that Janet Reno doesn't want to give him, but if the family wants it then we will insist he get that kind of day in court no matter how long it takes. We'll fight for that."

Dozens of supporters kept a vigil Thursday behind police barricades in front of Elián's Miami home. It was a loud, colorful, sometimes angry crowd on that side street in Little Havana. On recent days and nights, demonstrators have practiced creating human chains and sit-ins to block access to the house in case the federal authorities try to remove the 6-year-old boy.

The Cuban community flexed its muscles Wednesday night, when thousands crowded Calle Ocho in Little Havana as part of a candle and flashlight vigil in support of keeping Elián in Miami. The protest was the largest since the boy's case became a cause celebré here. It was peaceful, but it also gave police an idea of how many people might take to the streets in the event of an unpopular resolution to the case.

Miami's arch-conservative and often strident Cuban radio stations were credited with getting the crowd out and have also rallied demonstrators to the González's modest, salmon-tinted stucco home and to INS headquarters in Miami. Those same radio stations had a field day Thursday with a plan announced by Fidel Castro that would allow Elián's father to travel to Washington with an entourage of 30 people, including classmates and psychologists, who would accompany the child during the federal appeal process. Radio callers warned of possible Castro plots, including one caller who was afraid the Cuban president would send Cuba's "biotechnology experts" to poison Elián.

Attorneys for the González family in Miami have said their clients will obey the law, and demonstrators and exile leaders have said they will honor the family's wishes and step aside if the family asks them to. But it's becoming clear that what the family considers lawful and what the Justice Department is demanding are two different things. Elián's great-uncle and temporary legal guardian, Lazaro González, has refused to sign an agreement to turn the child over to authorities if a pending federal appeal goes against him. Exile leaders are depicting the Justice Department's demand as a heavy-handed and unconstitutional ultimatum, and the Cubans on the street agree.

Next page | Janet Reno: "It hurts me"