A Mexican national who authorities say illegally re-entered the United States five times said alcohol was the “mistake” that ultimately led to his arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement early Thursday.
Ernesto Alejandro Perez-Garcia was taken into custody by ICE in Redondo Beach, California, a Los Angeles-area coastal city. According to ICE, Perez-Garcia has an arrest history stretching back to 2003 that includes alcohol-related, drug-related and driving offenses, along with allegations involving terroristic threats and illegal re-entry into the U.S. Officials said he entered the country illegally five times and attempted to cross four additional times.
Fox News Digital was present as ICE agents arrested Perez-Garcia on Thursday. When officers first approached him along the Redondo Beach esplanade, he denied who he was. But after agents showed him an earlier mugshot, Perez-Garcia admitted he was the person they were looking for.
Following his booking and processing by ICE, Perez-Garcia told Fox News Digital that he lied to agents “to see if I could get away with it.” Once confronted with the mugshot, he said, he understood the situation immediately: “I’m busted, you know, in other words, I’m f—ed.”
Perez-Garcia said that even with ICE enforcement actions making national headlines, he did not believe he would be arrested Thursday morning. He described the encounter as happening during his regular morning walk.
“Once I saw the officer … with the picture of me, there was no way I was going to run,” he said.
He added that alcohol had played a central role in bringing him back into legal trouble. “At the end of the day,” Perez-Garcia said, “it’s the alcohol that got me back in this mess.” While he said the recent death of a friend “got me caught up [in alcoholism],” he acknowledged personal responsibility, saying, “It shouldn’t have, so it’s my mistake, and I’ve got to be responsible for that.”
Authorities said Perez-Garcia first entered the U.S. at an unknown time and location. His first recorded arrest cited by officials came on April 3, 2003, when the Torrance Police Department in California arrested him for driving without a license. He was later convicted and sentenced to 30 days. In the years that followed, he was also convicted of driving with a suspended license and possession of controlled substance paraphernalia.
According to ICE, the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, convicted Perez-Garcia on April 10, 2006, of threatening crime with intent to terrorize. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail and three years of probation. ICE removed him to Mexico for the first time the next month.
However, he re-entered the U.S. at an unknown date and location. On June 27, 2006, he was arrested again for threatening crime with intent to terrorize.
Over the next two decades, Perez-Garcia was arrested for various offenses, including repeated attempts to cross the southern border in Tecate, California.
Since 2020, Perez-Garcia has been arrested five times for disorderly conduct, including four arrests by the Redondo Beach Police Department. He was arrested twice this year for disorderly conduct, on April 17 and May 8. ICE said the department declined to honor its detainer requests twice, in 2020 and again in 2026.
Perez-Garcia claimed that the Redondo Beach Police Department “let me know a couple years ago” that ICE was looking for him.
“Redondo PD had told me about it, you know, Redondo PD was cool with it. They let me go with it, you know what I mean, but they also told me I had a warrant for my arrest,” he said.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Redondo Beach Police Department for comment on Perez-Garcia’s assertion.
Los Angeles Field Office Director Tom Giles spoke with Fox News Digital shortly before ICE arrested Perez-Garcia. Giles emphasized that “when these detainers aren’t honored, what it does for us is it sends our officers out into the community, putting our officers at risk and other community members at risk to go out and try to apprehend this individual.”
“So, for sanctuary policies, what we ask these jurisdictions is to cooperate with us,” he said, adding, “It will make our communities safer.”
Perez-Garcia said he believes his arrest by ICE is “fair.”
“I was trying to lie about it because I actually don’t got nothing there in Mexico right now, you know what I mean? I grew up right here, and this is what I know,” he said. Perez-Garcia also said his children live in the U.S. and that he has heard stories about how “so hard” it is to return to the U.S.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, to tell you the truth,” he said. “I already knew it was going to catch up to me; I just didn’t know when.”
