January 1, Five-Time Border Jumper Finally Admits What Got Him Caught

Wyatt’s Take

• Sanctuary city police warned this guy ICE was hunting him — then ignored federal detainer requests twice and let him walk free
• California courts gave him a slap on the wrist for terroristic threats, driving violations, and drug possession while he kept jumping the border like it was a revolving door
• It took five illegal entries and four more failed attempts before Trump’s ICE finally dragged him off the streets — and he admits he tried to lie his way out of it

A Mexican national who illegally crossed into America five times and tried four more times before getting caught admitted Thursday that his drinking problem is the “mistake” that finally landed him in ICE custody. But his real mistake was thinking California’s sanctuary policies would protect him forever.

Ernesto Alejandro Perez-Garcia was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents early Thursday morning in Redondo Beach, California, a Los Angeles suburb that’s been coddling illegal immigrants for years. Fox News was on the scene and watched the whole thing go down.

When ICE agents first approached Perez-Garcia on the Redondo Beach waterfront, he lied straight to their faces about who he was. Only when agents shoved a previous mugshot in front of him did he finally admit they had the right guy.

“I lied to see if I could get away with it,” Perez-Garcia told Fox News after being processed. “I’m busted, you know, in other words, I’m f—ed.”

This guy’s rap sheet reads like a greatest hits album of criminal behavior. Since 2003, he’s racked up arrests for alcohol offenses, controlled substance violations, driving without a license, driving with a suspended license, and making terroristic threats. And every time authorities caught him, California’s soft-on-crime courts gave him a pat on the head and sent him on his way.

The Superior Court of Los Angeles County convicted Perez-Garcia in April 2006 for threatening crime with intent to terrorize. His punishment? A whopping 60 days in jail and three years probation. ICE deported him to Mexico the next month.

But he was back across the border at an unknown date and location. On June 27, 2006 — barely two months after his deportation — police arrested him again for making terroristic threats.

Over the next two decades, Perez-Garcia treated the southern border like a personal playground, getting arrested repeatedly for trying to cross illegally in Tecate, California. Since 2020 alone, he’s been arrested five times for disorderly conduct, with the Redondo Beach Police Department handling four of those arrests.

He was busted twice just this year — April 17 and May 8. And here’s where it gets really infuriating: ICE issued detainer requests asking local police to hold Perez-Garcia so federal agents could pick him up. The Redondo Beach Police Department refused to honor those requests twice — once in 2020 and again in 2026.

Perez-Garcia claims the Redondo Beach cops actually warned him years ago that ICE was hunting for him.

“Redondo PD had told me about it, you know, Redondo PD was cool with it,” he said. “They let me go with it, you know what I mean, but they also told me I had a warrant for my arrest.”

Read that again. Local California police allegedly told a five-time illegal border crosser with a terroristic threats conviction that federal immigration agents had a warrant for him — and then let him walk the streets anyway. That’s sanctuary city policies in action, folks.

Tom Giles, Los Angeles Field Office Director for ICE, explained the real-world consequences of sanctuary policies just before Perez-Garcia’s arrest.

“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.

“So, for sanctuary policies, what we ask these jurisdictions is to cooperate with us. It will make our communities safer.”

Perez-Garcia admitted he didn’t expect to get arrested Thursday morning despite national headlines about ramped-up ICE operations under the current administration. He was taking his usual morning walk when agents spotted him.

“Once I saw the officer with the picture of me, there was no way I was going to run,” he said.

Then he tried to blame his repeated criminal behavior on alcohol and a friend’s death.

“At the end of the day, it’s the alcohol that got me back in this mess,” Perez-Garcia said. “A friend’s recent death got me caught up in alcoholism. It shouldn’t have, so it’s my mistake, and I’ve got to be responsible for that.”

But when pressed, Perez-Garcia admitted the arrest was “fair.” He also revealed why he tried lying to ICE agents in the first place.

“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 said his children live in the U.S. and claimed he’s heard stories about how hard it is to get back into America after deportation.

“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.”

Well, it finally did catch up to him — no thanks to California’s sanctuary city policies that protected him for years while he racked up arrest after arrest.

Why It Matters

This is exactly what happens when liberal cities put ideology over public safety. Redondo Beach police had this guy in custody multiple times and let him go rather than honor federal detainer requests. How many other illegal immigrants with criminal records are walking free in California right now because local cops refuse to cooperate with ICE? Americans deserve communities where the rule of law actually means something — not sanctuaries where criminals get tipped off that federal agents are looking for them.