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Morning News

Richard Nuccio Discusses the Elian Gonzalez Case and the Strain in U.S.-Cuban Relations

Aired March 31, 2000 - 9:22 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The strain between the U.S. and Cuba has been a constant factor in the fight over Elian Gonzalez's future.

For more insight on the political backdrop, Richard Nuccio joins us from Washington. A former professor of Latin American studies at Georgetown University, he also briefly served as President Clinton's special adviser on Cuba.

Good morning to you, sir. Thanks for your time.

RICHARD NUCCIO, DIR., PELL CTR. FOR INTL. AFFAIRS IN PUBLIC POLICY: Thanks for having me.

HEMMER: Correct my logic here, but if Elian Gonzalez's father comes to the U.S., is there a courtroom in America -- or if his father is sitting in that courtroom and says, I want to take him home, that the judges in that case won't say, OK, go for it.

NUCCIO: Probably that's the right conclusion, assuming that the father is sitting by himself en camera, with a judge, that there aren't Cuban security personnel, government security personnel, sitting at either side of him, and that the judge after some examination of his statement believes that it's offered freely and voluntarily. And I think certainly that would be the conclusion, and that would be the right one. And we should all, the family and everyone else who's been following this case, work to try to make the boy's transition as smooth as possible back to Cuba.

HEMMER: It may be some time before we get to that. I want to talk more about that in a second, but answer this. You believe the INS has, quote, "screwed this case up from the very beginning" -- your words not mine. Tell us why.

NUCCIO: Yes, well, I'm sure my friend Doris Meissner isn't happy to hear me say that. But the INS is caught up in a contradictory Cuba policy. Until August of 1994, Elian or anyone else who arrived in the United States was treated as a political refugee, no matter how they got here. And they were welcomed into the United States and treated, actually, with very special privileges.

In August of '94, President Clinton -- and I served him at that time, in part in a Cuba capacity -- changed the way we treat Cuban refugees. And ever since then the INS has been struggling to try to figure out what to do. We intercept people in the water before they ever get here, and we do that in part so that they can't take advantage of constitutional protections that you have when you enter the territory of the United States.

The "mistake," quote-unquote, that they made with Elian was to let him enter, let him out into the community with his family -- which was certainly the humanitarian thing to do.

HEMMER: Put him in a private home.

NUCCIO: Put him in a private home with family members -- that's all good. But once they did that, they triggered the family's right to appeal to our Constitution. And now they're fighting that appeal process. Something that, as I say, is a screw-up.

HEMMER: I heard you say something on another network earlier this week that you believe the INS has been pushing and squeezing the family into a corner, eventually reaching a point which they will not say yes any longer. Do you believe that's the case right now? Pushing them into a corner where they say, we're not signing this promissory note.

HEMMER: Well, I think what the INS is trying to do -- and I'm sure it's the Justice Department and the White House that are ultimately behind this decision -- is to use the attorney general's parole authority, that is, her ability to designate Elian as legally staying in the United States or to take it away and say you're now an illegal alien in the United States. They're using that parole authority of the attorney general to force the family to truncate this constitutional appeal process to which American citizens and residents who -- aliens who happen to be resident in the United States can take advantage of.

And I think it's unfair. It's understandable. They don't want the case to drag out. And that -- forgive me for throwing in too much information here, but...

HEMMER: Go ahead.

NUCCIO: ... there's another clock that we're looking at here. And that is that the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, that says that anyone from Cuba -- just from Cuba -- no matter how they get into the United States, once they're here for a year, has the right to ask that their status be adjusted so they are now a legal resident of the United States, no matter how they entered originally, illegally or any other way. And stretching that clock out to November 25th, which is when the boy entered, would open up a whole new set of appeals for the family. And I think the Justice Department and the INS is worried and doesn't want to face that new set of appeals.

HEMMER: And at that time it becomes a question of time.

Quickly here in the time we have left, some have suggested a quick resolution. You don't see it that way.

NUCCIO: I doubt it very much. I can't see the Justice Department sends U.S. marshals into Little Havana to invade a family's home and forcibly remove Elian.

HEMMER: How much longer are we looking at this? Through the election possibly?

NUCCIO: Well, we're certainly looking at months of appeals. And politically, although everyone says they don't want this case to be political, I think this isn't going to be resolved until after the November elections.

HEMMER: Well, seven months or more then. We'll watch it.

Richard Nuccio, live in Washington. Thanks for you time. Hope you can come back, OK?

NUCCIO: Thanks very much for having me.

HEMMER: Pleasure, OK.

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