Quit discussing Cuba with girl, judge orders

This isn't a political debate, the custody judge tells both sides at an emergency hearing.

MIAMI - A judge deciding whether a Cuban girl should remain with her foster parents in Florida or return to Cuba with her father warned both parties Tuesday against pulling the girl into a political debate about living in Cuba.

Attorneys for the girl's Miami foster parents requested an emergency hearing Tuesday before Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen to relate the child's apparent anxiety about the possibility of returning to Cuba. A court-appointed therapist told the judge by phone that the girl appeared very fearful Monday during a scheduled meeting when she was asked about Cuba, and repeatedly said she did not want to go there.

The judge ordered another court-appointed therapist, scheduled to meet with the girl and her father later Tuesday, to begin broaching with the girl the idea of living with her father. But Cohen also instructed both her father, Cuban farmer Rafael Izquierdo, and the foster parents, wealthy Cuban-American couple Joe and Maria Cubas, to refrain from discussing with the girl a potential return to Cuba.

"You're making a 5-year-old make an ideological value judgment about Cuba. The issue is not, 'Do you want to go Cuba?' The issue is, 'Do you want to be with your father?' We need to change the issue here," Cohen said.

"There's too much emotional content related to the name of the country."

The girl told the Cubases that during a weekend visitation with Izquierdo, she was told to say for a videocamera that she wanted to go to Cuba. Izquierdo denied the allegation.

The girl associates Cuba with separation from her half-brother and the family she has been living with in Miami, her foster father, Joe Cubas, told Cohen.

The girl remains with her foster parents, though the judge ruled last week that Izquierdo is a fit parent who did not abandon his daughter when her mother brought her to the U.S. in 2005. Cohen has scheduled a hearing Oct. 15 to hear arguments for keeping the girl with her foster parents.

The girl went into foster care after her mother attempted suicide in 2005.

[Last modified October 3, 2007, 01:34:12]