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Crossfire

Should Elian Gonzalez Go Back to Cuba?

Aired June 1, 2000 - 7:30 p.m. ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUAN MIGUEL GONZALEZ, ELIAN'S FATHER: I want to thank the American people. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: Tonight, a victory for Juan Miguel Gonzalez, as a federal court rules that his son is not entitled to an asylum hearing. Will Elian soon go back to Cuba, or will his case go to the Supreme Court?

ANNOUNCER: Live from Washington, CROSSFIRE. On the left, Bill Press; on the right, Robert Novak. In the CROSSFIRE, in Miami, Kendall Coffey, an attorney for the Miami relatives, and in Los Angeles, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California.

NOVAK: Good evening. Welcome to CROSSFIRE.

The end may not be at hand in the Elian Gonzalez saga. But you can sure see it from here. In Atlanta, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against an asylum hearing for the 6-year-old. Actually, the judges dodged the question of whether such a little boy could seek asylum on his own. It ruled that no federal law addresses that question, and that it's up to the INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS has ruled that the father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, must speak for the boy, so it's probably no asylum, and probably a return to communist Cuba. That was good enough for Juan Miguel's lawyer, who also happens to be President Clinton's lawyer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY CRAIG, ATTORNEY FOR JUAN MIGUEL GONZALEZ: This is a very important victory, not only for Juan Miguel Gonzalez, and for the right of a parent to speak for his or her child, but also for the rule of law in the United States. It is now time to end this chapter of Elian's life and to let this family go in peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: But 14 days remain for Elian's Miami relatives to appeal to the Supreme Court, and they signaled that they certainly intend to do so. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARISLEYSIS GONZALEZ, ELIAN'S COUSIN: I will keep my faith, and I think the battle is not over with yet. He's still here, he's still in this great country, and I hope that the laws of this country favor him and gives him the opportunity that we've always asked for: for him to seek asylum or to let this go to a family court.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: Vice President Gore today echoed exactly that view, that the case should go to a family court. But the courts and his own administration seemed aligned against him. Who's right? Al Gore or Bill Clinton? Congresswoman Maxine Waters will join us later -- Bill.

BILL PRESS, CO-HOST: Mr. Coffey, good evening, thank you for joining us.

KENDALL COFFEY, ATTORNEY FOR ELIAN'S MIAMI RELATIVES: Good evening, sir.

PRESS: Thank you.

The decision today of course is 33 pages long, don't have time and I won't try to read all of it. I'd just like to read three quick sentences from what the courts said. First, it is not for the courts, they ruled, but for the executive agency, in this case, the INS to set policy here. Secondly, the INS policy comes within the range of reasonable choices, and thirdly, even given the problems with human rights, et cetera, in Cuba -- quote -- "We cannot properly conclude that the INS policy is totally unreasonable in this respect."

Sir, and they ruled that 3-1. With all due respect, you're dead in the water, aren't you?

COFFEY: I think what they're ruling standing for is the proposition not that the INS was following the rule of law, but that the INS was not violating in the law in a fashion that was arbitrary and capricious. This is not a ringing endorsement for a well-handled matter of the INS. They simply said, and part of the opinion at the very end says, it is within the outside border of reasonable choices. So if you look at the opinions carefully, as I know all of us will be over the coming days, it's very clear that this is not stand up and cheer time for the INS. There are very substantial issues in this case.

And even beyond what the appeals court discussed in detail already, which is quite significant, is the larger constitutional question which remains to be addressed around the country, and that is, doesn't an alien on U.S. soil have a constitutional right to asylum hearing? That's a huge question, that affects hundreds of thousands of people. In the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, the answer has been no. There is no such constitutional right, but around other courts elsewhere in the country, there are different views, and that is why it is potentially a matter that the Supreme Court might or might not have interest in. We can't tell you what we're planning on doing at this hour. We certainly are still absorbing the opinion.

PRESS: Let me ask you right there, have you -- I understand you definitely plan to appeal. Have you made a decision to appeal to the 11th District Court panel for rehearing to the entire court en banc, or are you going to go directly to the Supreme Court? Can you tell us if you've made that decision?

COFFEY: We have not. We're absorbing an opinion, that although we disagree with its bottom line and conclusion, is a well written, very thoughtful opinion, we're absorbing that. And once we've had a few days, we'll make decisions, because we have always moved promptly in this case, and whatever we do, we will continue to move promptly.

PRESS: Now I understand that hope springs eternal in the breast of every attorney, but when you look at the fact you have lost of in Miami family court, that you have lost of in the federal court in Miami, that you have now lost in the appeals court in Atlanta 3-0, wouldn't you have to say that your chances, sir, are pretty slim? I mean, what possible ground still exists?

COFFEY: Well, for example, if we were in the Fifth Circuit we would have won this case, because they say...

PRESS: But you're not.

COFFEY: Let me finish.

They say that someone like Elian has a constitutional right to an asylum hearing. I think the same result would obtain in the second court, which is of course New York. That means very clearly that this is an issue about which there is significant controversy and disagreement, and it may be exactly the kind of question that the Supreme Court has to answer. We've been in the 11th Circuit all along. We have known their view on the constitutional status of immigrants like Elian, but there are other courts that see that differently, and it may be something that needs to be answered by the Supreme Court. I simply can't tell you at this hour whether and when we're going to proceed further.

NOVAK: Mr. Coffey, it seemed to me that the court, the judges said this is a political question, and the INS is a political agency run by an administration, and it's up to them.

Now am I correct in believing that if George W. Bush or -- or Al Gore were president, instead of Bill Clinton, and you had a different INS, and the INS took exactly the opposite view, to be consistent, this court would have said, yes, that's OK, because that wouldn't violate the law either, is that correct?

COFFEY: That's my reading of it, yes, that it's a matter -- they used the phrase political will, and there is not a basis to override that political will in this case, but as I read the opinion, had the INS reached the other outcome, that would have been within the INS' discretion. Ultimately, this is a call that the Clinton administration was allowed to make, but a different president and a different INS very clearly could have made a call that said at least this little boy gets a day in court rather than be completely excluded from any kind of a hearing, which is, of course the decision the INS has been fighting for.

NOVAK: Now do you have enough experience with the INS, Mr. Coffey, to know whether this is something that followed their precedents, or this was handed down from on high from the White House or the attorney general?

COFFEY: I can only tell thought opinion itself was signed off on by the INS commissioner. And from everything I read, it was approved at the highest levels of the Clinton administration. And what the court said is that as a federal judiciary, they can't necessarily, and in this case cannot, override the political will of the executive branch, but they made it just as plain, I thought, that they may or may not necessarily agree with that opinion. They simply had to under these circumstances as they saw it, defer to it. Now if there were a constitutional right, it's a different question issues, because...

PRESS: Mr. Coffey?

COFFEY: Yes, sir.

PRESS: I didn't mean to interrupt, I'm sorry.

Let me come back to that constitutional right you keep asserting. How can you say that a 6-year-old has a constitutional right to go into a court on his own and seek asylum when his father doesn't want him to? What constitutional right?

COFFEY: Of course children have constitutional rights. They are human beings, and their rights are just as important as adults. And the Supreme Court has said so many times, far more eloquently than I can, that children are not invisible to the Constitution. I feel very confident that children have constitutional rights. That is truly the law of our land.

PRESS: Just a quick follow-up. Any kid can go to any court, but his parents don't want him to, and say who he wants to live with? I mean, you are reinventing the Constitution.

COFFEY: That's not the issue. You know, what this turns on is whether a young child has a right to be protected from harm. And children do have constitutional rights to be protected from harm. This isn't saying that a 6-year-old child has a right to make the ultimate custody decision. We've never said the children by themselves should decide where they live, but that's different from saying whether a child has a constitutional right to at least have a day in court, so that if the child faces serious harm -- and by the way, Cuba is a policed state, where gross human rights violations occur, that if a child is threatened with harm, that they're entitled under our Constitution to a day in court to consider that harm. That's the issue. It's not whether a child can choose his or her own custody.

NOVAK: We're going to have to take a break, and we -- when we come back, we'll explore what this decision does to American justice.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PRESS: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.

There are as many opinions about today's court decision in the Elian Gonzalez case as there are attorneys involved. Is it a victory for the rule of law, or does it undermine the right of individuals to appeal to immigration law?

We debate the latest chapter in the long Elian story tonight with Kendall Coffey, attorney for Lazaro Gonzalez and family. He joins us from Miami. And we still hope to be joined by Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Democrat from California, in Los Angeles -- Bob.

NOVAK: Mr. Coffey, I want you to take a look at a statement that was made by Elian's cousin in Miami today, Marisleysis. Let's listen to her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARISLEYSIS GONZALEZ, ELIAN'S COUSIN: I don't see why we're not allowed to see him. We took care of him for five months and we did the best we can. And I feel that we as a family should be able to see this little boy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: Mr. Coffey, what do you think of that? Why won't they let the family see the boy?

COFFEY: I'm outraged. I don't understand it. We get nothing but excuses from the INS. We're going to take one last round at trying to work this out with them, and then unfortunately we're going to have to try to seek legal remedies.

He's obviously had a loving relationship with them. He still has a loving relationship. Everyone acknowledges that Marisleysis was the mother figure in his life. They won't even let him see the Catholic priest that was the spiritual adviser who would see Elian every day.

I think it's appalling that -- I mean, it's...

NOVAK: I understand that -- I understand that the priest was preparing the boy for communion. Do you understand that?

Welcome, Congresswoman Waters. We're glad to see you.

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D), CALIFORNIA: Good to be here.

NOVAK: Can you tell us why in the world they won't even let the little boy, the family that's been taking care of this little boy lovingly for five months see him?

WATERS: Well, I certainly cannot answer for the family except to say I don't know why we think about these relationships any differently than we think about our own relationships here in this country. A father has a right to decide who can see his child. The mother has the right to decide who can see her child. In this country, there are no laws or no reasons why anybody can make us allow cousins or anybody else to see our child.

We like to start thinking about this as if somehow there's a violation of family rights, because the father, for whatever reason, may be deciding -- we don't know that -- but I certainly would support that this is the father's decision. And whatever the father decides to do, there is nothing wrong with that.

NOVAK: You know, Congresswoman Waters, before you arrived, the attorney, Mr. Coffey, and I were discussing the fact that this court decision has -- is such that if there had been -- if there had been a different president, if George W. Bush was president or Al Gore was president and had ordered the INS to rule differently, the court would have said the INS could do anything it wanted. It could have said, yes, there should be an asylum hearing for the boy.

So this is strictly a political decision, isn't it?

WATERS: Oh, no, it's not a political decision. You know that's a stretch.

As a matter of fact, they simply decided, based on the laws, that the INS had made the correct decision.

Now if you take a look at this decision, the question that was being asked was does a child, a 6-year-old, have the right to request political asylum or asylum in the United States. And the court said in essence that they followed the law and there is no right for a child to decide...

NOVAK: No, no, no. The court never said that, Maxine. The court said it's up to the INS. They can do anything they want.

WATERS: Well, they -- well, what they said was they made the correct decision. They made the correct decision.

NOVAK: Now, I want you to...

WATERS: They supported the INS decision.

NOVAK: Now, I think the most -- you're a very astute political observer, and so let's look at the politics of this. We have Greg Craig, who was President Clinton's lawyer, who's been doing shuttle diplomacy between dictator Castro and Washington, and he was the man who ran this. And one of the Cuban-American leaders had this to say today about Greg Craig.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAMON SAUL SANCHEZ, PRESIDENT, DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT: He is so deeply, deeply into dealings with the Cuban government that he does not deserve any credit on my side. I'm sorry to say that. Mr. Craig is involving the case of Elian Gonzalez because there is a much bigger agenda behind all these unfortunately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: Congresswoman Waters, a big agenda by you and my good friend Charlie Rangel and other people is to open up relations with the communist dictatorship in Cuba. That's what this is about, isn't it?

WATERS: No, it is not about that at all. There is a time for a discussion about the embargo, about the blockade. All of my comments have basically centered on parental rights, the right of a father to decide what happens to his child and to have his child.

Somehow, those Cubans in Miami, who have a terrible dislike for Castro -- and that's their right to do that -- are trying to decide that they know better for this child than does the father. And that's what I object to.

PRESS: Maxine, I'm sorry to -- I'm sorry to interrupt, Maxine.

WATERS: Yes.

PRESS: But we're just about out of time. I want to ask Mr. Coffey on that very point. That's what, you know, the father of Elian said today after this ruling, Mr. Coffey. He said a child simply should always be with his parents. How can you disagree with that, and why are you trying to rip them apart?

COFFEY: We're not, and I think the parental relationship is one of the most important things in all of life. But the ultimate thing that never happened here was some kind of determination of what was best for the child. And every child in America is entitled to that. And this child was denied that.

PRESS: I'm sorry. On that point, it's going to have to be the last word, Mr. Coffey. Thank you very, very much for joining us.

COFFEY: Thank you, sir.

PRESS: Congresswoman Waters, thank you for joining us...

WATERS: Yes.

PRESS: ... in Los Angeles. Better late than never. And Bob Novak and I will be back with closing comment.

But first, you know, this is a very special day for CNN. It's also a very special day for one of your favorite CNN personalities. So stay tuned. You're going to see something real good, coming back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PRESS: OK, Bob, you know, this is -- before we get to closing comments, a very special anniversary for CNN today, but it's also a very special anniversary for you. Our viewers may not know that, so look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PRESS (voice-over): Twenty years ago to the day, June 1st, 1980, Ted Turner founded the Cable News Network.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TED TURNER, FOUNDER, CNN: I dedicate the news channel for America, the Cable News Network.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESS: We take it for granted now, but at the time, CNN was the first network providing 24-hour news coverage around the globe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm David Walker.

LOIS HARP (ph), CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Lois Harp. Now here's the news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESS: And among the pioneers in those very early days, our own Robert Novak. Here's Bob providing commentary for CNN at the 1980 Republican national convention.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: George, I've been told by the Reagan people that both Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford will come to the hall tonight after Reagan is nominated for president and appear on the platform together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESS: Just two years later...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from Washington, CROSSFIRE.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESS: ... CNN launched CROSSFIRE. Bob later became a regular host of CROSSFIRE, of course, founded "EVANS & NOVAK" and "THE CAPITAL GANG" and earned the title "The Prince of Darkness."

CNN and Bob Novak, still going strong and still looking good 20 years later.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PRESS: Bob, you haven't changed a bit.

Congratulations. Happy anniversary to CNN and to you.

Any thoughts, pioneer? NOVAK: Well, you know, after 20 years it's hard to imagine the world without CNN. It's hard to imagine my life without CNN. And I'm really grateful that I have been able to tell millions of people things that you would never tell them about freedom, about the capitalist system, about anti-communism, about freedom throughout the globe.

So I want to say thank you to CNN for letting me speak the truth.

PRESS: Glad you're there, Bob, and I'm glad I'm here to provide a little bit of balance, too. OK.

And that's not all for tonight. So for a complete look at 20 years of CNN's news coverage, tune in two special editions of "LARRY KING LIVE" tonight and Friday, 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. Eastern. Of course, that's only on CNN.

Bob, back to today's topic. You know, you're the big basketball fan. You know this thing is all over except for playing out the last couple of minutes, and I think it's a big victory for parents to have jurisdiction over their kids, period.

NOVAK: What it's a big victory for is for communism. They don't get many wins anymore.

This poor little boy is going to be raised in a communist hothouse down there.

You know, it's funny, all the people down there are dying to come out. They get on rafts, they risk their life, and liberals like you, hothouse liberals want to send them this little boy back.

I hope you can sleep well at night knowing what you have done.

PRESS: Oh, no. Believe me, I will. And you know why? Because I don't want to send him back: I want the father to make the decision, Bob, about where he wants to live and where he wants to live with his little boy. And even if he's a Cuban, Bob, that ought to be his decision. We should not dictate it like Fidel Castro would.

NOVAK: You don't think there's any difference between communism and freedom.

PRESS: Of course there is, of course there is. But it's up to the father to decide.

Happy anniversary again. From the left, I'm Bill Press. Good night for CROSSFIRE.

NOVAK: Thank you very much, Bill. From the right, I'm Robert Novak. Join us again next time for another edition, after 20 years, of CROSSFIRE.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

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