U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Ernesto Alejandro Perez-Garcia, a Mexican national who had illegally entered the United States five times, in Redondo Beach, California. Perez-Garcia, who has a history of offenses dating back to 2003, attributed his repeated illegal entries and subsequent arrest to alcohol.

Perez-Garcia was apprehended by ICE agents on Thursday morning. During the encounter, he initially denied his identity but later admitted to being the individual sought by authorities when presented with a previous mugshot. Following his processing, he told Fox News Digital that he had lied to agents in an attempt to evade capture. "I’m busted, you know, in other words, I’m f---ed," he stated after realizing he had been identified.

According to ICE, Perez-Garcia has a criminal record that includes arrests for alcohol-related offenses, controlled substance possession, driving infractions, and making terroristic threats. He was first arrested by the Torrance Police Department in April 2003 for driving without a license, leading to a 30-day sentence. Subsequent convictions included driving with a suspended license and possessing controlled substance paraphernalia.

In April 2006, Perez-Garcia was convicted in Los Angeles Superior Court of threatening crime with intent to terrorize, receiving a 60-day jail sentence and three years of probation. ICE removed him to Mexico the following month. However, he re-entered the U.S. at an unknown date and was arrested again in June 2006 for a similar offense.

Over the next two decades, Perez-Garcia was arrested multiple times, including for repeated attempts to cross the U.S. southern border. ICE records indicate he has made four additional attempts to enter the country in addition to his five successful illegal entries. Since 2020, he has been arrested five times for disorderly conduct, with four of those arrests made by the Redondo Beach Police Department. ICE stated that the Redondo Beach Police Department declined to honor its detainer requests twice, in 2020 and again in 2026.

Perez-Garcia claimed that the Redondo Beach Police Department had informed him a couple of years prior that ICE was searching for him, and that they were "cool with it" and let him proceed despite knowing he had a warrant for his arrest. Fox News Digital reached out to the Redondo Beach Police Department for comment on this assertion.

Tom Giles, Los Angeles Field Office Director for ICE, emphasized the risks posed when detainer requests are not honored. "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 said. He urged jurisdictions to cooperate with ICE to enhance community safety.

Perez-Garcia expressed that he believed his arrest was