EXCLUSIVE: An illegal immigrant who re-entered the U.S. five times said his drinking is the "mistake" that finally led to his arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement early Thursday morning.
Ernesto Alejandro Perez-Garcia, a Mexican national, was arrested by ICE in Redondo Beach, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. Perez-Garcia has a history of arrests dating to 2003 for alcohol-, controlled substance- and driving-related offenses, as well as making terroristic threats and illegally re-entering the U.S. ICE said he illegally entered the country five times and made four additional attempts to enter.
Fox News Digital witnessed ICE arrest Perez-Garcia on Thursday. When agents first encountered him on the Redondo Beach esplanade, he denied his identity. However, when confronted with a previous mugshot, Perez-Garcia acknowledged that he was the man they were seeking.
After ICE booked and processed him, Perez-Garcia told Fox News Digital that he lied to agents "to see if I could get away with it." He said that after he was confronted with his mugshot, he realized, "I'm busted, you know, in other words, I'm f---ed."
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Perez-Garcia said that despite national headlines about ICE operations, he did not expect to be arrested Thursday morning. He said he was on his usual morning walk when agents encountered him.
"Once I saw the officer … with the picture of me, there was no way I was going to run," he said.
"At the end of the day," he continued, "it's the alcohol that got me back in this mess." While he said a friend's recent death "got me caught up [in alcoholism]," he said, "It shouldn't have, so it's my mistake, and I've got to be responsible for that."
Perez-Garcia first entered the U.S. at an unknown date and location. The Torrance Police Department in California initially arrested him on April 3, 2003, for driving without a license. He was convicted and sentenced to 30 days. Over the next few years, he was also convicted of driving with a suspended license and possessing 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.
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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.
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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."
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"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."
