All About Elian
The custody battle over Elian Gonzalez took center stage on CBS News' Face The Nation on Sunday.
Talks were resuming Monday between the Justice Department and lawyers for the boy's Miami relatives. The government wants the relatives to sign a promise by Tuesday to hand over the boy if they lose their legal battle to keep the six-year-old in this country. Elian's father has applied for a visa to come to the United States to claim temporary custody of his son in his fight to bring the boy back to Cuba.
Linda Osberg-Braun, an attorney for the American relatives, told Face The Nation that the father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, should not only come to the U.S., but to Miami in particular.
"When he does, it needs to be psychologically healthy for little Elian, and it needs to be a gradual process of integration," she said.
"There is no question that he loves the boy and that the boy loves him. We need to understand what he's thinking in a free situation, not one where he is controlled from Castro's forces." she added.
Osberg-Braun cited claims by the Miami relatives that the father has been verbally abusive to the boy on the phone from Cuba.
The father told Elian "that his mother was waiting for him and that he should come back to where she was. That's cruel. We understand that's because of the forces in Cuba coaching him and coercing him to say these horrible things to his son."
The White House responded that there is no evidence of the sort. And the lawyer for Elian's father said the "outrageous" allegations were a sign the Miami relatives are getting desperate.
"There is no doubt this father loves his boy very, very much," said Gregory Craig, who represents Juan Miguel Gonzalez.
Craig told CBS News he expects the father to get a visa on Monday to come to the United States.
"We really don't think there's any excuse for any more delay between the time these two can be reunited, the father and son." he said.
Osberg-Braun defended her clients for allowing the boy to be interviewed on national television last week.
"We did so in a way most appropriate and with a psychologist there." she said.
Also on Face The Nation, Florida Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart
said it was "a most unfair analogy" to liken Miami area leaders upset about the Elian case to Alabama Gov. George Wallace's defiance of the Federal government in the 1960's civil rights battles, as Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer suggested in his questioning.
"When the local authorities say that they want to follow the law, how could you say that they are saying they don't want to follow the law?" asked the Republican congressman, fending off concerns about potential violence in Miami over the Elian case.
Vice President Al Gore's appeal to Congress to give Elian permanent residency status drew fire from a fellow Democrat on Fae The Nation.
Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) claimed Gore was "pandering" to Cuban American voters in Florida, which has 25 electoral votes.
The congressman asked of Gore, "Is he willing to include the seven million illegal aliens who like Elian have no residency in this country, and is he willing to include in the bill that he supports, the two million residents waiting for citizenship?"
"Why do you single out Elian?" added Serrano, who may boycott this summer's Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles over Gore's new position on the Cuban boy.
The vice president "hasn't picked up votes in Miami and at the same time he has angered a lot of Latino and a lot of African Americans who represent Haitians and Africans," said the congressman.
In Serrano's state of New York, the two U.S. Senate contenders there clash over Elian. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democrat, opposes congressional action in the case. Taking a step further than Gore, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, wants Congress to grant the boy U.S. citizenship and let Florida's family court resolve any custody issues.
White House chief of staff John Podesta downplayed the differences between Gore and President Clinton over the Elian matter.
"The vice president has had a different position on this for a long time," Podesta told Face The Nation.
Mr. Clinton favors sending Elian back to Cuba.
"I think both of them share the view that we want to try to deescalate this, try to get out of the media circus, do what's right for the boy." added Podesta.
And the White House chief of staff said Gore's position was about more than courting Florida's Cuban-American vote.
"People will judge this but I think it is not political. I think he is trying to do what is in the best interest of the child."
Last but not least, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura weighed in on the Elian controversy on Face The Nation.
"No matter how much we probably don't want this young man to go back to Cuba, I still feel that his biological father has every right to his son," said Ventura. "And I think that transcends all politics."