Elián González

The custody and immigration status of a young Cuban boy, Elián González (born December 7, 1993), was at the center of a heated 2000 controversy involving the governments of Cuba and the United States, González's father, Juan Miguel González Quintana, González's other relatives in Miami, Florida, and in Cuba, and Miami's Cuban American community. González's mother had drowned in late 1999 while attempting to leave Cuba with her son and her boyfriend to the United States. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) initially placed González with paternal relatives in Miami, who sought to keep him in the United States against his father's demands that González be returned to Cuba. A federal district court's ruling that only...