Elian was escorted to his first day of school on Tuesday

January 5, 2000
Web posted at: 4:42 p.m. EST (2142 GMT)

In this story: 'This little boy belongs with his father' 'The right decision legally and morally' Plans for returning Elian unclear Protestors promise 'anything to stop this action' RELATED STORIES, SITES

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Florida relatives of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez have sent a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno and the White House asking for a review of the decision by immigration officials to allow Elian to return to Cuba with his father.

Attorney Spencer Eig called the decision by the Immigration and Naturalization Service unfair, unprecedented and unconstitutional, and said it stripped the boy of his "right to political asylum" without giving him a hearing.

Lawyers for the relatives also said they were "prepared to file various writs to protect Elian's rights" in court.

VIDEO Watch the INS announcement that Elian should be returned to his father. (January 5) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Susan Candiotti has background on the plight of Elian Gonzalez. (January 5) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K     MESSAGE BOARD US/Cuba relations

Earlier Wednesday, Doris Meissner, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the agency hopes arrangements can be made to return Elian to Cuba by January 14.

How that would be done has yet to be determined, but Meissner said one possibility was having Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, come to the United States to escort his son home.

Elian was found clinging to an inner tube off the Florida coast on November 25. He was one of three survivors among a group of Cubans shipwrecked while trying to leave their homeland. His mother and stepfather drowned.

"This little boy, who has been through so much, belongs with his father," Meissner said at a Washington news conference.

People protesting the INS decision gathered Wednesday in front of the agency's offices in Miami and the home of his U.S. relatives. As for Elian himself, he was attending his second day of classes at a private school in Miami when the INS decision was announced.

Meissner said the INS, which checked birth records and conducted two interviews with Juan Miguel Gonzalez, had determined that he had the legal authority to speak for his son.

"The father made it very clear that he wants Elian returned to him as soon as possible," Meissner said.

In Cuba, there was no immediate comment from the father, who Meissner said had been informed of the INS decision.

Several Miami lawyers and a great-uncle on the father's side of the family, Lazaro Gonzalez, all failed in their separate efforts to convince the INS that Elian should stay in the United States.

"It is the right decision legally and it is the right decision morally," Meissner said.

She said no decision had been made on how Elian should be sent back to Cuba but hoped the boy's relatives in both countries would cooperate. The INS "is prepared to work with all involved to make the return by January 14," she said.

Meissner said the options included:

• Having the father come to the United States to pick up his son

• Having the boy's U.S. relatives escort him back to Cuba

• Having a church organization or other third party handle the arrangements

Washington has asked Havana to let the boy's father travel to Miami to pick him up. While Cuba has not responded officially, a senior official Tuesday told CNN in Havana that Cuba would do whatever the father wishes.

Juan Miguel Gonzalez has repeatedly told reporters that he had no intention of traveling to the United States to escort his son home.

He also told CNN he feared for his safety if he traveled to the United States. "They'll want to pressure me. They may even kidnap me or try to kill me. Anything is possible in a country that has done what it's done with my son," the father said Monday.

But if Juan Miguel Gonzalez changes his mind, a senior Cuban official told CNN Tuesday the government will grant him an exit visa.

"We will do whatever is convenient for him (the father) according to his wishes in order to solve this problem," said Ricardo Alarcon, who heads Cuba's National Assembly and is President Fidel Castro's point man on U.S. affairs.

Previously, the Castro government would say only it would consider granting the father an exit visa. It believes that under international law Elian should be returned to Cuba without having his father come get him.

Outside the relatives' home, Jose Basulto, director of the anti-Castro organization Brothers to the Rescue, said Wednesday his group and another, the Democracia Movement, will do "anything to stop this action."

Basulto urged Cuban Americans to form traffic slowdowns and stoppages as a way to protest the order. He also urged protesters to form a human ring around the boy to prevent him from being taken away.

Basulto did not say when or how this might be done.

Havana Bureau Chief Lucia Newman and correspondent Susan Candiotti contributed to this report.

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