Young Stowaway Orphan’s Tale Takes Turn for Worse : INS doesn’t believe Colombian’s story; major parts of it don’t stand up. He may be sent back tonight despite celebrity status.

Of all the illegal immigrants who arrive here each year, this kid was different--with a 1,000-kilowatt smile and an incredible tale of surviving a three-hour flight from Colombia crammed into the wheel well of a cargo jet. The media could not get enough of 13-year-old Guillermo Rosales.

He was orphaned, he said, when his parents were killed in a bus accident. He lived on the streets of Cali and slept in an abandoned airplane. He stowed away to the United States on June 3 because he wanted to go to college.

Rosales’ first all-American meal--a Big Mac and a milkshake--was treated as a major news event. Television stations followed him to McDonald’s. The Miami Herald ran a color picture on the Sunday front page. NBC’s “Dateline” did a feature, and after the wire services picked up his story, the boy received adoption offers from as far away as Port Townsend, Wash.

Of course, it was all too good to be true.

Guillermo Rosales turned out to be Juan Carlos Guzman, not 13 but turning 17. His mother and stepfather were alive. And as for his account of enduring sub-zero temperatures and a lack of oxygen while clinging to the landing gear of a plane traveling at 30,000 feet--immigration officials don’t believe it.

Today, Guzman is scheduled to be deported to Colombia.

After disappearing for a week, he was picked up by police Tuesday when a businessman told police he found the boy sleeping behind his store. Guzman was being held in custody by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, where assistant district director George Waldroup said, “We’re making arrangements for his return.”

Until about noon Tuesday, Miami attorney David Iverson, who has been representing Guzman, did not know where his client was. The boy vanished after the INS called to say his passport and ticket home were ready.

Miami’s large Colombian community had taken Guzman to their hearts. For a while he had stayed with Miami police officer Jairo Lozano and his family.

“Yes, I was surprised and disappointed (when he fled) because I thought he was going through the system,” Lozano said. “There were a lot of people helping him, and if he had stayed and acted like a normal kid, there was a chance for him to stay. Now, there’s no chance.”

Although not an orphan, Guzman says he was abused by his parents. His stepfather in Cali has admitted to reporters that he did beat the boy, and that he and the boy’s mother do not want him back.

Iverson said he is willing to continue hunting for a way to keep the youth in the United States, perhaps on a student visa. But it may be too late.

The boy’s 30-day temporary visa, granted after the intercession of Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), expires at midnight today. Iverson says his appeals to U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno have gone unanswered.

In a city routinely awash in refugees from politically or economically oppressed nations, the attorney admits that the treatment accorded Guzman--a stowaway from a democracy--has been extraordinary. “If he were Cuban, there would be no problem,” Iverson said. “If he were Haitian, he’d be back in Haiti now. But Juan Carlos falls in between.”

The media attention lavished on Guzman has also highlighted what many see as a double standard in immigration policy based on race.

INS officials deny any special treatment was given Guzman.

“We consider this a routine case,” says Waldroup. “It’s another day in the life of the Miami INS.”

Although Guzman has admitted that he lied about his name, age and background, he has insisted that he did arrive in Miami in the wheel well of the Arca Airlines DC-8. And while medical and aviation experts doubt it, saying he would have suffocated or frozen to death, Iverson does believe that part of the story.

“He was blue and semiconscious when they found him, and the pilots later said that they may have flown lower than 31,000 feet,” says Iverson. “I’ve heard him go through it again and again, and the details are always the same. I don’t detect any dishonesty there.”

Iverson does admit, however, that Guzman has now compounded his credibility problem. “I’m somewhat disappointed and worn out myself with all this,” said Iverson. “But I give him a lot of credit, too.

“I think he got tired of being poked and prodded like that, on interviews where reporters wanted to make a story, make him cry.

“He’s a quiet, shy kind of kid. Given what’s he’s been through, he’s pretty emotionally healthy and down-to-earth. He realized a long time ago that he’s on his own in this life.”