Please Let It End

The much-ballyhooed U.S./Cuba child custody battle....OK so it's just the Herald and us bored bloggers making a big deal about it....appears to be coming to a conclusion.

It couldn't come soon enough.

Is it just me, or is judge Jeri Cohen sort of a Larry Seidlin-light? She's not as upfront or obnoxious in seeking the limelight, but her facial expressions and occasional opinionated outbursts have gotten quite irritating. Anyway that's beside the point.

I've arrived at the conclusion that if the girl's father really wants to take her back to Cuba, go right ahead. Please. Leave us alone already. I'll be shocked if Judge Cohen rules for the girl to stay. That may sound insensitive, but let's face it, one girl's return to Cuba isn't going to change anything regarding Cuba. Neither would her staying here accomplish much in the larger picture.

Judge Cohen's eventual decision to allow the father to take the girl back to Cuba will be met with the same interest the case has been garnering, which is pretty much with a shrug. Most Cuban-Americans obviously won't be pleased, but for those few Cuban-Americans who love to diss the "historic" hard-liners and secretly reveled in the fiasco that was Elian, realize this: you aren't going to get any big embarrassing reaction this time around. I know that will come as a major disappointment, but as I like to say, "Forget About It"!

Elian Part 2, this is not.

Magda Sticks It To Us Again

Okay, maybe not directly...but as you all know I love to pick on South Florida's very own resident castro cheerleader.

Everyone in South Florida has heard about the child custody case involving the now five year old Cuban girl whose birth father, Rafael Izquierdo, is trying to take back to Cuba. Representing the father are, of course, Magda Montiel Davis and hubby Ira Kurzban.

Check out this nugget from yesterday's Herald (emphasis mine):

Izquierdo's lawyers -- Ira Kurzban, law partner Steven Weinger and Kurzban's wife, Magda Montiel Davis -- say they are representing Izquierdo for free, but many of their expenses are being reimbursed by the state Judicial Administration Commission, which covers legal work for indigent Floridians. Davis said they will ask to be reimbursed for $100,000 -- which will be covered by taxpayers.

Davis said she estimates that all members of the legal team probably have foregone about $1 million in legal fees by devoting the bulk of their work time to a case that will earn them nothing.

Ouch! Can you say: neither pro nor bono? I realize that the state DCF is also involved, and that the fees for their reps will likely also be footed by us taxpayers. Still, makes you think about what pro bono really means in this case, eh?

Who needs to complain about using public money to build a baseball stadium when we have lawyers handing us the bill for a child custody case?

The Veil Has Been Lifted

Looks like we finally have some names of people involved in the custody case involving the 4-year-old Cuban girl.

Birth father: Rafael Izquierdo.

This next one caught my attention:

Foster father: Joe Cubas.

Yes, THAT Joe Cubas. The sports agent who represented Livan and "El Duque" Hernandez the moment they arrived in the U.S.

Update on Latest Custody Dispute

The Miami Herald gives us a few more details on the case involving the 4-year-old Miami girl, her mentally ill mother, and her father in Cuba who wants her back with him.

For example:

A year before a Miami woman at the center of an international child-custody dispute lost her two children to child-welfare investigators, she offered to give her daughter, then 2 years old, to a family friend in Texas ``as a gift.''

The mother, who immigrated to the United States in 2004, was living in Houston near a family friend from the small city of Cabaiguán in central Cuba. Faced with withering emotional problems, the woman asked the friend, Iraida González, to raise the toddler as her own daughter.

'She said, `I want to give her to you. You are a good person, a Christian,' '' González told The Miami Herald. ``She'll be better off with you.''

We also learn that the father is a fisherman and office worker in the town of Guayos.

Some more information on family relations:

The children's maternal grandmother in Cuba, Margarita Corrales, is torn: She says the girl's dad is an honest, hardworking man who has ''always been a good father.'' But the children are happy with their current family, she told The Miami Herald, and she would hate to see sister and brother split up.

''I put that in the hands of God. He knows more than me,'' Corrales said. ``I have faith that He will make the right decision.''

Corrales said she is grateful to the Gables family for caring for the kids. She said she talks to them regularly and has seen recent photos.

More:

After an uncle in Miami declined to take the family in, González said, the mother arrived unannounced in Houston and began living with González and husband Francisco, both in their 60s.

The couple immediately fell in love with the two children: the bright, intelligent boy and the bubbly girl with reddish-blond hair and eyes that looked blue or green depending on what she wore.

The mother doted on the son but called the girl ''a bother,'' González said.

Sometimes, the son would call the González family's stonemasonry shop, crying that his mother had locked them all in the house, said worker Diana Rodas, who also taught the children Bible lessons at Agape Baptist Church.

González said the boy often spoke to his father in Cuba by phone. ''That boy adores his father,'' she said. She said the girl's father rarely called her.

So we know a bit more about the father, as well as the history of the relationship. However, we're still getting mixed signals as far as the father's ability to take care of his daughter. Based solely on what the Herald has reported, you can argue both sides of the father's fitness.

Stay tuned.

No Elian Found Here

The Miami Herald story involving the 4-year-old Cuban girl taken under custody by the state of Florida has garnered a lot of reaction from the local blogosphere.

See the following posts here, here, here and here for more.

While similarities to the Elian saga exist, they are primarily superficial and once you start looking into the guts of the issue, it becomes immediately evident that this is a different case altogether.

I refer you to the initial Herald story as well as this one published today for the details, but I do have some thoughts of my own about this.

We have a mentally ill, abusive mother who's clearly unfit to take care of her children. We have a father in Cuba who wants her daughter back, but at the same time allegedly didn't take much action when the mother abused the girl back in Cuba, therefore raising legitimate concerns about his fitness as a parent.

The courts should obviously decide who's fit and unfit to take care of the child. More importantly, we need to hear from the father without interference from Cuba.

Is this possible? I have my doubts.

If we get to hear the father's story, and if his intentions are truly his own, then should we deny him his daughter? I don't think so. I know this won't sit well with many of my fellow Cuban-American bloggers whom I greatly admire, but hear me out for a second.

Believe me, the thought of anyone living under oppression turns my stomach. Personally speaking, I have seen how cousins of mine in Cuba suffer under the injustices of a society that only rewards those who walk the straight castro line. This is something that those who were adamant against Elian staying, regardless of the legitimate doubts that were raised, should pause and take note of.

But I do know something else: my cousins love their children and only want the best for them. They know that the best for them isn't in Cuba, but there's not much they can do about that. In the meantime, at least the kids have a place to sleep and a loving mother and father to take care of them.

Just as we shouldn't draw too many parallels to Elian, we shouldn't compare this to the Pedro Pan children of the 60s. Those parents voluntarily sent their children here in the early days of the revolution. They displayed great courage and strength. However, not everyone is the same.

Conceding one quick analogy to Elian: my big beef with that case was that we never got to hear Elian's father's true intentions. He was a puppet of the castro regime. Instead of insisting that we hear from the father and that he meet with his Miami relatives who only wanted the best for the boy, what we got was the United States (read: Clinton administration) caving in to Cuba without the slightest bit of concern for the facts to be played out.

This is why I sincerely hope that politics DO NOT get involved in this case, and that the Cuban-American community not get sucked in to the castroite trap of joining in the political circus.

How will the Cuban-American community react? We've learned (hopefully) our lessons from Elian seven years ago. I hope that we can focus on the facts of the case and not get drawn into a tit-for-tat with the Cuban regime. Let's let this be decided in the courts via due process, through OUR laws, not Cuba's.

So far, so good. I hope it stays that way.