WHEREAS, On Thanksgiving day, 1999, five-year-old Elian Gonzalez was pulled out of the Straits of Florida by a fisherman as he was clinging to an inner tube. Elian was the lone survivor of a doomed raft escape from Cuba in which he witnessed the drowning of his mother; and
WHEREAS, From Thanksgiving until April 23, 2000, the day before Easter, Elian Gonzalez remained with relatives from Miami, Florida, namely his Great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez and his 21-year old cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez; and
WHEREAS, In Cuba, Elians parents shared custody of him after their divorce. Elian lived in both their houses and saw each of them as well as both sets of granddparents on a regular, if not daily, basis; and
WHEREAS, The law in this country, as elsewhere, is that a surviving parent has custody of, and speaks for, a young child unless the parent is unfit; and no one has produced evidence that Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, anything but a loving father; and
WHEREAS, The relationship between Elian and his father was compromised by Elian's Miami relatives refusal to allow effective communication such as telephone calls from Elian's father in Cuba to his son; and
WHEREAS, It was the Miami relatives, not the federal government, who acted outside the law by ignoring an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) order to deliver Elian to federal authorities so that they could reunite him with his Cuba father; and
WHEREAS, While legally, United States Attorney General Janet Reno could have seized Elian weeks ago, she judiciously decided to exhaust all reasonable options to accommodate the Miami relatives in order to assure a peaceful transition; and
WHEREAS, When it was clear that the negotiatons had broke down, Attorney General Janet Reno implemented an efficient and swift plan which resulted in the safe transfer of Elian to his father with no loss of life; and
WHEREAS, The smiling faces of Elian and his father as they embraced each other confirm not only the sanctity of the bond between father and son but also the rightness of what Attorney General Janet Reno did; now therefore
RESOLVED, THAT THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, Hereby commends Attorney General Janet Reno for confirming this country's commitment to family values by reuniting Elian Gonzalez with his father.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution be sent to Attorney General Janet Reno, President Clinton, and all members of the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation as evidence of the sincere sentiments of this legislative body.
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