Years after Elian, Cuban custody fight simmers

updated 11:17 a.m. ET Aug. 26, 2007

MIAMI - A Cuban father allows his young daughter to emigrate legally to the United States with her mother, hoping they will find a better life. But months later, when the mother becomes incapable of caring for the girl, he seeks to bring the child home.

It would seem a simple case, but nothing is simple in Miami when it comes to Cuba and child custody.

Nearly eight years after the battle over young Elian Gonzalez divided this city, another Cuban child has become the center of a bitter custody fight. A trial is set to begin Monday in family court over whether the 4-year-old girl's father can regain custody of his daughter or whether she should remain with the wealthy Cuban-American former sports agent and his wife who want to adopt her.

Unlike the Elian case, so far this custody battle has moved quietly — albeit slowly — through family court. That could change. On Thursday, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jerri B. Cohen lifted a gag order on the parties — propelling the case into the public, and possibly political, arena. The sides are keeping the girl's name secret.

Allowing the parties to speak to the media could "inflame the community," Cohen told the girl's foster father, Joe Cubas, 46. Cubas has represented the New York Mets' Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez and several other defecting Cuban ball players.

Initially, he supported the gag order but later asked it be lifted because he said he was getting too many questions about the case.

"It's going to explode," the judge warned. "I know that as sure as I sit here. I can't prevent that."

Still, community leaders, many of whom fought hard to keep Elian from returning to Cuba, say they do not believe this case will spark similar tensions. The facts are different this time around, and neither the U.S. government nor the Cuban-exile community, burned by its negative portrayal during the Elian case, have a desire to repeat the past.

More amicable than Elian's case
Elian, then 5, was found floating at sea on an inner tube on Thanksgiving Day 1999, his mother drowning with others during her attempt to bring him to the U.S. His father did not come to Miami until immigration officials ruled that the boy should return to Cuba, over the objections of his Miami relatives and many Cuban exiles. The standoff ended after armed federal agents raided the Little Havana home of his 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 formed after the Elian case to promote democracy in Cuba through more moderate channels.

The case began in 2004 when the girl's mother, Elena Perez, won the visa lottery to come to the U.S. with her son and daughter, each of whom has a different father. Both fathers agreed to allow their children to go, but things did not go well for Perez in the U.S., and in December 2005 she was hospitalized after a suicide attempt. The children were put in foster care and ended up with the Cubas family. Perez agreed to allow them to adopt her son, now 13, but not her daughter with Rafael Izquierdo, 32.

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