A Mexican national arrested by ICE in Southern California admitted to federal agents he lied about his identity to “see if I could get away with it” — before confessing that his drinking habit was the real “mistake” that landed him back in custody.
Ernesto Alejandro Perez-Garcia was arrested Thursday morning in Redondo Beach, California, after illegally entering the United States five times and making four additional attempts to cross the border.
Fox News Digital witnessed the arrest firsthand. When ICE agents first approached Perez-Garcia on the Redondo Beach esplanade, he denied his identity. But when agents showed him a previous mugshot, he admitted he was their target.
“I’m busted, you know, in other words, I’m f—ed.”
After being processed, Perez-Garcia told Fox News that he lied “to see if I could get away with it.” Once confronted with photographic evidence, he said he realized the game was over.
Despite national headlines about stepped-up ICE enforcement operations, Perez-Garcia said he didn’t expect to be arrested during his usual morning walk. “Once I saw the officer … with the picture of me, there was no way I was going to run,” he said.
He blamed alcohol for his downfall. “At the end of the day, it’s the alcohol that got me back in this mess,” Perez-Garcia said. While a friend’s recent death triggered his relapse into alcoholism, he admitted: “It shouldn’t have, so it’s my mistake, and I’ve got to be responsible for that.”
Perez-Garcia’s criminal history stretches back more than two decades. He first entered the U.S. at an unknown date and location. The Torrance Police Department in California 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 racked up convictions for driving with a suspended license and possessing controlled substance paraphernalia.
In 2006, the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, convicted Perez-Garcia 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.
But he re-entered the U.S. at an unknown date and location. Just weeks after his first deportation, on June 27, 2006, he was arrested again for threatening crime with intent to terrorize.
Over the next two decades, Perez-Garcia was arrested repeatedly for various offenses, including multiple attempts to cross the southern border in Tecate, California.
Since 2020, he’s been arrested five times for disorderly conduct — four of those arrests by the Redondo Beach Police Department. He was arrested twice this year alone, on April 17 and May 8.
ICE said the Redondo Beach Police Department declined to honor its detainer requests twice — once in 2020 and again in 2026.
Perez-Garcia claimed local police warned him 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 the arrest. He emphasized that when local law enforcement refuses to honor ICE detainers, federal agents are forced into the streets to make arrests — putting officers and community members at greater risk.
“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.”
Giles called on sanctuary jurisdictions to cooperate with ICE. “It will make our communities safer,” he said.
Perez-Garcia said he believes his arrest is “fair.” He explained that he lied to agents because he has “nothing there in Mexico right now” and grew up in the U.S. His children also live in the United States, and he’s heard stories about how difficult it is to return after deportation.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, to tell you the truth,” Perez-Garcia said. “I already knew it was going to catch up to me; I just didn’t know when.”
