MIAMI (AP) — A Cuban father allowed his young daughter to emigrate legally to the United States with her mother to find a better life. But months later, the mother has become incapable of caring for the girl, and the father wants to take the child home.
It would seem a simple case, especially since the mother agrees her daughter should return to Cuba.
Yet on the eve of the trial, a judge has warned that it could “inflame the community,” where the battle over Elian Gonzalez nearly eight years ago divided the city and became an international incident.
Testimony is to begin today over whether 32-year-old Cuban farmer Rafael Izquierdo can regain custody of his 4-year-old daughter — whose name is being kept secret — or whether she should remain with a wealthy Cuban-American and his wife, who want to adopt her.
Until now the custody battle has moved quietly through family court.
But on Thursday, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen reluctantly lifted a gag order at the request of the girl’s foster father, Joe Cubas, 46, a former sports agent who has represented the New York Mets’ Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez and several other ballplayers who defected from Cuba. Mr. Cubas said he asked that it be lifted because he said he was getting many questions about the case.
The judge warned that allowing the parties to speak to the press “could have the possibility to inflame the community.”
“It’s going to explode,” Judge Cohen said. “I know that as sure as I sit here, I can’t prevent that.”
Still, civic leaders, many of whom fought hard to keep Elian from returning to Cuba, say they don’t think this case will spark similar reactions.
Elian, then 5, was found floating at sea on an inner tube on Thanksgiving Day 1999 after his mother drowned with others attempting to defect to the United States. The boy’s Miami relatives insisted that Elian remain in this country, but immigration officials ruled in favor of his father, who wanted him returned to Cuba. A standoff ended when armed federal agents raided the Little Havana home of Elian’s uncle to seize the boy and send him to Cuba.
In the current case, both parents are in Miami and have agreed to participate in the U.S. legal system — and both say the girl should go with her father.
“The reaction in the community has been incredibly mature up to this point, and I’m sure it will remain this way,” said Carlos Saladrigas, head of the Cuba Study Group, a nonpartisan group of business and civic leaders.
The case began in 2004 when the girl’s mother, Elena Perez, won the visa lottery to come to the United States with her son and daughter.
But when Mrs. Perez was hospitalized in December 2005 after a suicide attempt, the children were put in foster care and ended up with the Cubas family. Mrs. Perez agreed to let them adopt her son, now 13, but not her daughter.
Mr. Izquierdo said he wants to take his daughter back to his family home in the central Cuban village of Cabaiguan, where he and his wife have a 7-year-old daughter.
“Her room is ready with and her bed and her little toys,” he said Thursday.
Mr. Cubas said the girl, who calls him “Papi,” shouldn’t be separated from her brother and doesn’t want to go back to Cuba.
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