March 21, 2000,
NEW YORK CITY – “Delighted but not surprised” at a federal judge’s
ruling that only the U.S. attorney general can grant asylum to Elian Gonzalez, National
Council of Churches General Secretary Dr. Bob Edgar today said, “I only wish it had
come sooner.”
“Elian
should have been home before Christmas,” Dr. Edgar said. “I urge the Immigration and Naturalization
Service to move quickly in returning Elian to his father, grandparents and
great-grandmother.” Dr. Edgar added that he has left a message for I.N.S.
Commissioner Doris Meissner indicating that the National Council of Churches stands “ready
to help, if needed.”
The NCC and
Cuban Council of Churches have been working since December – at first quietly and
then publicly – for six-year-old Elian’s return to his father and extended
family in Cardenas, Cuba. “If a parent
is loving, caring and not abusive, a child should be with his or her parent, and Juan
Miguel Gonzalez is a loving father,” Dr. Edgar said.
The Council’s
efforts on Elian’s behalf were particularly intense and time-consuming in January,
when an NCC delegation visited Elian’s family in Cuba (Jan. 2-5) and then hosted
Elian’s grandmothers during their mid-January U.S. visit. “It was worth it,” Dr. Edgar said,
putting the NCC’s efforts on Elian’s behalf in the context of the ecumenical
body’s “commitment to and compassion for all children, whether they are in
Mozambique, Bangladesh or held in a house in Miami.”
Among lessons
from the project: “The federal government needs to move more quickly, and there are
limits to what governments can do. People-to-people
efforts often bear more fruit,” Dr. Edgar said.
He said the NCC
will continue to work in collaboration with the Cuban Council of Churches for
normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba.
-end-
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