January 27, 2000
Web posted at: 11:59 a.m. EST (1659 GMT)

MESSAGE BOARD US/Cuba relations

MIAMI (CNN) -- The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service responded Thursday in Miami federal court to a suit filed by the U.S. relatives of 6-year-old Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez. The relatives oppose an INS order that the boy be returned to his father in Cuba.

Elian was rescued from the waters off the coast of Florida after a shipwreck in which his mother drowned. He has since been living with relatives in Miami

Portions of the INS response to the court challenge read as follows:

"The United States has concluded that the two should be reunited because it is the father who now speaks for his son.

"Elian is so young he cannot comprehend the significance of an asylum application."

"Elian and his father are very close."

The INS is ".... asking the court to dismiss this case for lack of standing.

"Elian's rights are vested exclusively in his father and thus Lazaro (Gonzalez, his great uncle) has no authority."

The response says the INS has concluded no one but the father may speak for the boy.

"Because the commission (the INS) has determined that Elian's father speaks for him with respect to federal immigration matters, a state court cannot decide otherwise.

"Elian lacks standing to bring this suit because in as much as his father has withdrawn Elian's admission and asylum applications, Elian has not suffered an 'injury in fact.'

The INS also says, "The plaintiffs have also failed to meet their burden of showing a substantial threat of irreparable harm. The real harm is that 6-year-old Elian is being kept from his father and his father from him.

"The INS will be harmed if it cannot act upon the immigration decisions parents make on their children's behalf and, if this country does not honor the wishes of a child's surviving parent, the United States will be harmed from the standpoint of its international standing in protecting parental rights in cases involving American children.

"It disserves the public interest to undermine the principle that parents may decide what is best for their children. It disserves the public interest to undermine the ability of immigration inspectors at our ports-of-entry to look to parents to make immigration decisions for their children.

"It disserves the public interest to undermine the ability of the United States to obtain the return of U.S. citizen children. "

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