He’s Just Glad the Mix-Up Is Over : Legal system: Anaheim man spent 45 days in jail and faced deportation in case of mistaken identity. He was too timid to protest, lawyer says.

Javier Perez Garcia smiles and says, no, he has no anger at El Tio Samuel --Uncle Sam.

Garcia, a 20-year-old Mexican immigrant, says he is happy still to be in the United States and untangled from a case of mistaken identity--a mix-up that not only got him wrongly jailed for 45 days but nearly got him deported.

There is another man around here who calls himself Javier Perez Garcia and who also is 20. Both have birthdays in February, six days apart. Their parents all have the same names. But the other Garcia, who is still being sought by police, was convicted of cocaine dealing.

And in September, 1990, when Orange County marshals came looking for that man for violating probation, they went to the apartment of the wrong Javier Perez Garcia. This one is a forklift operator, not a drug dealer.

“Mr. Garcia did not protest because he is very docile, timid and not sure of his rights,” said his attorney, Jose Ramirez. “If something like this had happened to an English-speaking U.S. citizen, he would have raised hell, and the confusion would have been straightened out.”

But Garcia did not raise hell. He did not even ask why he was being arrested. He said he thought it had to do with a juvenile misdemeanor case four years ago, when he and some other ninth-graders stole a bicycle.

“Javier thought it was strange that police were still interested in that long-ago juvenile offense, but he didn’t question it,” Ramirez said.

On Thursday, Garcia said no one ever told him exactly what he was accused of. He admitted “probation violation,” he said, even though he really did not know what it meant.

The judge sentenced him to 90 days. He served 45 and was released for good behavior.

In the meantime, the Immigration and Naturalization Service also confused the men. Last February, the INS told this Garcia that his request for temporary residence under the amnesty program was being denied because of the drug-related conviction.

It was then that Garcia finally realized he was being mistaken for someone else. He went to an immigration counselor, Armando Diaz, who found there were two Javier Perez Garcias. Diaz also enlisted the help of Ramirez.

Out of all that, the court erased Garcia’s admission of the probation violation. And the INS says it has fixed its records and granted Garcia temporary residence--and the opportunity, down the line, to become a U.S. citizen.

How did it happen?

“Part of it is the blame of Mr. Garcia for not being more aggressive about his rights, and part of it, I think, is the fault of the (court) interpreter for not making things clear,” said Ramirez.

Anaheim Police Sgt. David Severson said: “All this guy had to do was just raise his hand at any point and say: ‘It’s not me.’ It’s an easy process of confirming identity by fingerprints or photos. It boggles my mind that this guy never said anything.”

INS Western Service Center Director Joseph L. Thomas said the INS has scores of immigrant case files with identical names. “It’s not the only occurrence of mistaken identity we’ve had.” He said INS officials moved to make matters right when they learned of the mix-up.

At the Orange County public defender’s office, which represented Garcia in court, Chief Deputy Public Defender Carl Holmes said “there was no reason for us to believe this wasn’t the same guy. He admitted the violation of probation without any protest that he was not the guy involved.”

Holmes added that the case shows a cultural gap, one that endangers Mexican immigrants.

“Mexico has a different system of justice,” he said. “In Mexico, you can get in trouble in court for protesting or making waves. I worry that other immigrants, like Mr. Garcia, sometimes don’t speak up.”

For himself, Garcia said, “I just want to go on working and go on with my life.”