January 12, 2000
Web posted at: 6:13 p.m. EST (2313 GMT)

In this story: Deadline delayed Reno: Florida judge has no jurisdiction Anti-U.S. rally RELATED STORIES, SITES

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The case of Elian Gonzalez appears headed to yet another courtroom. Attorney General Janet Reno said Wednesday a state court ruling in Florida "has no force or effect" on an order from the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service to return the 6-year-old shipwreck survivor to his father in Cuba.

VIDEO CNN's Mark Potter reports on the ruling that gives temporary custody of Elian Gonzalez to the Cuban boy's relatives in Miami. (January 10) Windows Media 28K 80K     ALSO A boy's view from a yard in Miami     MESSAGE BOARD US/Cuba relations

Reno said any challenge to the INS decision must come in federal rather than state court and she urged the boy's Miami family to do just that. "We are prepared to litigate in that forum," Reno said in a letter delivered to the boy's lawyers and relatives in Florida.

One of the family's lawyers, Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, said he was "disappointed" in the attorney general's letter and said the family intends to file a federal lawsuit on January 18 seeking political asylum for the boy.

Cuban exile activists in Miami said they do not plan to ask for Cuban-Americans to restart their campaign of civil disobedience protesting the INS order because the case is still going through the legal system.

On Monday, Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Rosa Rodriguez gave the boy's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, temporary custody until a March 6 hearing.

That ruling defied the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which determined that Elian's Cuban father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, has sole legal authority to speak for the boy.

The INS set Friday as the target date for Elian to be returned to him, but immigration officials now concede that the boy's fate will not be settled by then and they have no plans to forcibly return Elian to Cuba.

In Cuba, a highly placed government official told CNN it was "shameless" that the INS would not enforce its order.

The INS has extended that January 14 deadline indefinitely "to accommodate the federal court proceedings that we envision," a spokesman, Russ Bergeron, said after Reno's letter was released.

After reviewing the decision issued by the Florida judge, Reno said in her letter that the state court has no jurisdiction to intervene in a federal immigration case.

"The question of who may speak for a 6-year-old child in applying for admission or asylum is a matter of federal immigration law," Reno wrote. The question of who speaks for the boy "remains one of federal, not state, law."

In her ruling, Rodriquez said she was convinced that Elian would face imminent harm if he was returned to Cuba. The assertion is "absurd to the point of being obscene," another official Cuban source told CNN.

In Havana, Cubans enraged by the Florida judge's ruling participated in a massive government-organized rally that began just minutes after the decision was announced.

"Can a rational person explain what stops a father hugging his son after 50 days' captivity which will go down in history as a crime the honest citizens of this planet cannot forget?'' asked student leader Hassan Perez.

Perez, who has acted as a government spokesman during the custody battle, addressed the latest "Free Elian!" demonstration which drew tens of thousands of people outside the Havana building housing the U.S. Interests Section -- the only official U.S. diplomatic presence in Cuba.

Speakers vowed over and over they would not let up protests until Elian was returned. Perez compared Elian's "captors" to Adolf Hitler's "torturers" and the death squads behind disappearances in Latin America.

Elian was rescued in waters off Florida on November 25 after a boat full of illegal Cuban migrants capsized. Ten people on the boat, including his mother, died in the accident. Elian, who was one of three survivors, was taken in by relatives in Miami.

Since then, Elian's father, a tourism worker who lives in Cuba and was divorced from his mother, has been demanding his return.

In her ruling, the Florida judge called on Juan Gonzalez to come to Miami from Cuba to appear before her at the March 6 hearing.

Havana Bureau Chief Lucia Newman, Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas and Correspondent Mark Potter contributed to this report.