Unlike Elian, These Two Should Stay in U.S.

Day after day, election year after election year, a politician’s actions are assessed and the insults fly. Rarely are praises sung. Compliments come mainly at fund-raising banquets or in a candidate’s own ads. What a public servant garners too commonly from the public is ridicule or contempt.

Even when a legislator goes out of his or her way to aid a child, public outrage can follow. Somewhere in this privileged land sit senators and representatives who cannot fathom how anyone could have misgivings over a congressional bill, introduced a few days ago, proposing instant U.S. citizenship for a 6-year-old boy who would be “better off” here, rather than at home in Cuba with his dad.

(The “Father Doesn’t Know Best” bill, as it perhaps should be known.)

It is to the great credit of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.) that she opposes this bill vehemently, endeavoring to talk some sense into colleagues who believe that little Elian Gonzalez should adore America and live here happily ever after. Remember their motto: Love it and don’t leave it.

And it is to Feinstein’s further credit that she is able to weigh such cases individually, without conforming to anyone’s idea of what is fair for one necessarily being fair for everybody.

Two separate bills were introduced by Feinstein this week proposing permanent U.S. residency for two teenage boys living in Southern California, asking that they not be sent back where they came from, as opposed to that tot from Cuba. In each of these actions, Feinstein was not only justified, she was compassionate and even brave.

Every once in a while, being politically correct can mean that someone has acted correctly, politically.

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Private bills have been presented to Congress on behalf of Tony Lara, 19, of Northridge, a young man who lost his mother and was abandoned by his father, and Guy Taylor, 18, of Garden Grove, who lost his mother and never knew his father.

If ever there were two needy, forsaken immigrants for whom U.S. citizenship should be granted under extenuating circumstances, Tony and Guy are they.

Neither has done a thing to make expulsion necessary. On the contrary, by all available evidence each has been a model citizen, gaining a high school diploma with no parental guidance, making do when fate gave them nothing but hard knocks. These are the kinds of fellows President Clinton should invite to the White House someday, welcoming them to America officially.

There are two essential differences between Elian Gonzalez and the others. One is that Elian is extremely young, in urgent need of a parent and a home. The other is that Elian has a parent and a home to which he can go. To send either Tony Lara or Guy Taylor “home” would be to send them to no one.

These differences actually give the cases a common bond. They form the link that Feinstein grasped immediately. As the senator emphasized in presenting her bills, this is about “keeping families together,” not wedging them apart.

The only “family” that Tony Lara has now is in the San Fernando Valley, not in El Salvador, where he was born. He was 10 when his parents fled a civil war back home. His mother was deported by the U.S. and--in an eerie parallel to Elian Gonzalez’s tale--drowned on the voyage home. His father abandoned the children, Tony and his sister Olga, and never contacted them again. He was deported in 1994.

Totally abandoned, Tony took care of his sister--often going hungry himself--until a Northridge couple adopted her. They weren’t able to afford two new children, so Tony’s wrestling coach in high school invited him home. Not only did Tony graduate, he now helps the coach with the team.

Feinstein said she could think of no one more deserving of permanent U.S. residence than Tony, who overcame “one tragic setback after another.”

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Guy Taylor’s story has been told in this space twice before. He was born in Canada, where his father was unknown and his mother died from a drug overdose. He lives with his grandparents in Orange County, where 1,000 residents petitioned legislators to give Guy a green card rather than deport him when a temporary visa expired.

Word came from Feinstein’s office in mid-December that when Congress reconvened in January, she would act on Guy’s behalf. She has kept her word.

It will be up to Congress next, who stays and who goes. May they be correct in deciding who stays.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com