U.S.

Elian Stirs Immigration Debate

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 4, 2000 / 7:59 AM EST / CBS

The case of Elian Gonzalez is sparking yet another group to take to the streets, CBS News Correspondent Jeffrey Kofman reports. This time, however, the issue is not the 6-year-old Cuban's fate -- it's the fate of millions who are turned away at America's door.

Black activists at a Miami rally honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Saturday called for an end to what they see as a double standard in U.S. immigration policy that favors Cubans over Haitians.

The group of about 150 people denounced Miami officials for going to Washington on behalf of Gonzalez, who was found clinging to an inner tube Nov. 25 off the Florida coast after his mother, stepfather and others died in a failed attempt to reach U.S. shores. They say Haitians and African Americans watch in frustration as Cuban refugees who come to the United States are welcomed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but Haitians are turned away.

According to Haitian-American activist Gepsie Metellus, "This is a double standard and this double standard leads to the feeling that racism is active and well, and that prejudice and discrimination are very much alive and well."

In the eyes of U.S. immigration, there are the Cubans and then there are the rest. It's a struggle to stay in the country for most refugees, but a 1966 law virtually guarantees Cubans who reach American shores the right to stay. U.S. officials say the Cubans get special treatment because they are fleeing economic and political oppression. Try telling that to a Haitian.

Haitians are fleeing a country considered to be the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Cuba has a Communist government; Haiti has no working government, and no law. Yet when a boat carrying 400 Haitians ran aground off the Florida Coast on New Year's Day, all but four people on board were sent back to Haiti by the INS. The Gonzalez case is making it hard to ignore the very different reception for different refugees.

Meanwhile, increasingly frustrated by Gonzalez's extended stay in the United States, an estimated 150,000 Cubans Saturday rallied to demand the child's return, the angriest protest so far in six weeks of demonstrations.

The gathering came one day after a deadline the INS had set for Elian to be returned to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who lives in Cuba.

But last week, Attorney General Janet Reno lifted the deadline to give Elian's relatives in Miami a chance to fight in federal court to keep the boy with them in the U.S. Elian's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, says he can give the child a better life off the communist island.

Cuban authorities are becoming increasingly impatient with the delays, which they say only increase the psychological suffering of a boy who lost his mother at sea and is now separated from his father and grandparents in Cuba.

Cuba insists Elian was "kidnapped" and is being "held hostage" by enemies of Castro's communist government in Miami. Elian's iami relatives and anti-Castro exile leaders who visit the family there are typically referred to in Cuba as "criminals," "terrorists" and "wolves."

The Miami relatives that are refusing to let him return to his father in Cuba are running out of legal options, but that has not diminished their passion. "The government of Cuba is the one that will receive the custody of Elian even though his father may receive him," thinks family advisor Jose Basulto. "And that is what is not understood here."