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We go to this report from Miami:
Reiko: According to state campaign finance records, Judge Rosa Rodriguez, the Florida state court judge who awarded custody of Elian Gonzalez to a Miami relative, paid one of the family's principal supporters $10,000 for political consulting during her election campaign in 1998.
The payments raised the issue of a conflict of interest in Miami-Dade County family court Judge Rosa Rodriguez' decision Monday that the 6-year-old should stay in the United States pending a March 6 hearing, political analysts said.
"Her failure to disclose [...] undermines public trust in her decision and in any further proceedings that flow from this," said Prof. Anthony Alfieri, director of the Center for Ethics and Public Service at the University of Miami Law School. "That's very disquieting for this community and for any constitutional democracy," he continues.
Now we go to this report form D.C.:
Akane: U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said on Wednesday a Florida state court had no right to intervene in the tug of war over a 6-year-old Cuban boy and made clear plans were continuing to return him to his father in Cuba.
"Indeed, the question of who may speak for a 6-year-old child in applying for admission or asylum is a matter of federal immigration law," Reno said in a letter to lawyers for the boy's Florida kin.
Cuban exiles celebrated that decision by Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge Rosa Rodriguez, but Reno said it had no standing.
In the Justice Department's judgement, "the Florida court's order has no force or effect insofar as INS's administration of the immigration laws is concerned."
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Two Women Escaping in a Phonebooth
Reiko Aya & Akane Karasuma
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