The showdown over the fate of Elian Gonzalez yesterday spawned a clutch of court cases as lawyers for the US government and the Cuban boy's Miami relatives embarked on intricate and conflicting manoeuvres to determine the future of the celebrated six-year-old.
The justice department applied for a federal order to reinforce its ruling that Elian should be returned to his father, Mr Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who flew from Cuba more than a week ago to collect his child.
The move reflected the reluctance of the US attorney general, Ms Janet Reno, to send federal officials into the Miami home where Elian has been staying since he was shipwrecked in November to take the boy from his great-uncle, Mr Lazaro Gonzalez.
Immigration officials were yesterday reported to be rehearsing a raid on the house, using mainly female officers wearing civilian clothes instead of uniforms to minimise damaging publicity.
But Mr Lazaro Gonzalez's house in Miami's Little Havana remained ringed by an encampment of defiant Cuban exiles braving heavy rain to maintain their routine of prayers and anticommunist chants.
Insisting that Elian's repatriation to Communist Cuba would constitute a violation of his human rights, they have vowed to present a human barrier to any government attempt to remove him, and to ensure that any attempt to enforce Ms Reno's orders would create an ugly scene. Justice department officials said yesterday they hoped a raid would not be necessary.
Mr Lazaro Gonzalez has said repeatedly he would not offer resistance to any government attempt to move Elian, but nor would he deliver the boy to the authorities. He has maintained that the boy's father, Mr Juan Miguel Gonzalez, is being coerced by Mr Fidel Castro's government and does not really want to return to Cuba - a claim Elian's father has rejected.
Lawyers for Lazaro won an injunction on Thursday preventing Elian's return to Cuba. The government countered yesterday by offering to prevent Mr Gonzalez from leaving with his son until an appeal by the Miami relatives against the repatriation could be heard next month. But that offer was conditional on Elian being returned to his father.
The Cuban American National Foundation, an exile group which has funded the Miami relatives' legal costs, embarked on yet another court case in Washington yesterday, seeking to prevent the US government from sending Elian back to Cuba unless it could guarantee his rights would not be infringed by the government in Havana.
Mr Juan Miguel Gonzalez has begun to show signs of strain. He was said to be furious at the broadcast on Thursday of a video made by Elian's Miami relatives in which the boy repeatedly insisted he did not want to go back to Cuba.