City of Philadelphia - File #: 000275

• File #: 000275
• Version: 0
• Type: Resolution
• Status: ADOPTED
• File created: 4/27/2000
• In control: CITY COUNCIL
• Final action: 4/27/2000
• Title: Commending Attorney General Janet Reno for confirming the country's commitment to family values by reuniting Elian Gonzalez with his father.
• Sponsors: Councilmember Ortiz, Councilmember Cohen, Councilmember Reynolds Brown, Councilmember Goode, Councilmember Tasco, Council President Verna, Councilmember Blackwell, Councilmember Miller, Councilmember Mariano, Councilmember DiCicco, Councilmember O'Neill, Councilmember Rizzo, Councilmember Longstreth, Councilmember Clarke

Date	Ver.	Action By	Action	Result	Tally
4/27/2000	0	CITY COUNCIL	ADOPTED
4/27/2000	0	CITY COUNCIL	READ
4/27/2000	0	CITY COUNCIL	Introduced	Pass

Title
Commending Attorney General Janet Reno for confirming the country's commitment to family values by reuniting Elian Gonzalez with his father.
Body
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...