Elian’s not going back to Cuba yet.
His father has promised to keep the boy in the United States as long as legal appeals continue, a process expected to take at least six more weeks – and possibly longer.
A federal appeals court is expected to rule by late May or early June whether the Immigration and Naturalization Service has to consider granting the boy political asylum here.
The already highly expedited case is in the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has scheduled oral arguments for May 11.
The INS had ruled previously that the boy could not apply for asylum without his father’s approval. But his Miami relatives appealed that decision to federal court and gained an injunction temporarily barring the INS from sending Elian back to Cuba until the case is decided by the 11th Circuit.
Lawyers for Elian’s father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, will argue that only he can ask for asylum for his son and that he does not want to do so.
If the court rules that the INS must consider the relatives’ application for the boy anyway, the case will be passed back to the agency.
For a person to be granted political asylum, he must prove he faces serious persecution in his home country – a legal standard that is unlikely to be met in the case of a small child with a loving family back home.
If the court rules that the INS does not have to make such a decision, the boy’s father will be granted the right to take the boy home. But that still may not be the end of the saga, since the relatives have vowed to appeal such a decision.
Then the case could end up in the Supreme Court, although the lawyer for Juan Miguel said he does not expect that to happen because he will argue that the Miami relatives no longer have the right to represent the boy in court.
“The father is the only one who should speak for the boy,” lawyer Gregory Craig said.
An hour after Elian was reunited with his father, INS officials came to Juan Miguel at Andrews Air Force Base with papers for him to sign granting him legal custody of his son, Craig said.
Linda Osberg-Braun, the lawyer for the Miami relatives, said she is worried that the boy will be whisked away to Cuba.
“We’re very skeptical, especially after what happened this morning,” she said.
But Craig said his client has agreed to stay in the United States as long as the court process takes.
“Juan Miguel is an honorable man,” Craig said.
The lawyer added that Juan Miguel is not interested in staying in the United States permanently.
“I think he is comfortable with his decision to return to the town where he grew up, to return to his home,” Craig said.
The lawyer said Gonzalez is making his own decisions without being coached by officials from Cuba.
“People have tested that in a variety of ways,” Craig said. “The attorney general has had two meetings with him.”
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