premise: WASHINGTON _
  
  A six-year-old boy who arrived on US shores as a motherless refugee and became a political symbol for anti-Castro exiles must be returned to his father in Cuba, immigration authorities ruled Wednesday.
  Faced with the choice of keeping Elian Gonzalez with relatives in Miami, where the boy has been wooed with American toys and theme-park visits, or returning him to his apparently distraught father in Havana, the Immigration and Naturalization Service decided the boy should go home by Jan. 14, INS commissioner Doris Meissner told reporters.
  ``This little boy, who has been through so much, belongs with his father,'' Meissner told a news conference. ``The core issue here is the bond between the parent and the child.''
  The decision was met with outrage by Cuban-Americans, who said the youngster will suffer under the repressive communist regime of Fidel Castro. Lawyers for the boy's family in Miami sent letters of protest to Attorney General Janet Reno and President Clinton and said they were prepared to file a court appeal if Reno and Clinton spurn the Gonzalez family.
   What might happen if Elian is returned to Cuba?
hypothesis: the youngster will suffer