BS BULLETIN
- ICE arrested Mexican national Ernesto Alejandro Perez-Garcia Thursday after authorities say he illegally entered the U.S. five times and attempted four additional crossings.
- ICE says Redondo Beach police twice declined immigration detainers, including one this year.
- Perez-Garcia admitted lying about his identity when ICE found him: “I was trying to lie about it.”
Here is today’s installment of Things That Should Not Require Federal Agents Chasing Somebody Down on the Street.
ICE agents arrested Mexican national Ernesto Alejandro Perez-Garcia in Redondo Beach, California, early Thursday after an immigration history that raises one fairly obvious question:
How many chances does one guy get?
According to ICE information provided to Fox News Digital, Perez-Garcia illegally entered the United States five times and made four additional attempts to enter. His record stretches back more than two decades and includes arrests or convictions involving driving offenses, drug paraphernalia, disorderly conduct and threatening a crime with intent to terrorize.
ICE first removed Perez-Garcia to Mexico in May 2006 after a Los Angeles County conviction for making a threat with intent to terrorize, for which he received 60 days in jail and three years’ probation.
He came back. And the encounters with law enforcement kept coming.
Since 2020, Perez-Garcia has been arrested five times for disorderly conduct, according to ICE, including four arrests by Redondo Beach police. He was arrested twice just this year — on April 17 and May 8.
Here’s the part that should have immigration officials reaching for the aspirin: ICE says the Redondo Beach Police Department declined to honor detainer requests for Perez-Garcia twice — once in 2020 and again in 2026.
ICE arrests illegal immigrant in Redondo Beach who re-entered the U.S. five times — and he admits on camera he tried to lie his way out of it.
Ernesto Alejandro Perez-Garcia, 42, a Mexican national with a criminal history stretching back to 2003 including terroristic threats and… pic.twitter.com/QCTMSjfsu1
— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) August 22, 2026
Los Angeles ICE Field Office Director Tom Giles explained the consequence rather plainly.
“When these detainers aren’t honored,” Giles said, ICE officers have to go back into communities to locate and arrest the person, “putting our officers at risk and other community members at risk.”
Perez-Garcia himself offered an extraordinary detail. He claimed Redondo Beach police had previously told him ICE was looking for him.
“Redondo PD was cool with it,” he told Fox News, adding that officers let him go while also informing him that he had a warrant.
When ICE finally encountered Perez-Garcia during his morning walk Thursday, he initially denied being the man agents were seeking. There was one small problem. They had his mugshot. Perez-Garcia eventually acknowledged his identity and later explained that he lied “to see if I could get away with it.”
Once agents produced the photograph, he said he realized: “I’m busted.”
Perhaps the most remarkable part of the interview is that Perez-Garcia doesn’t pretend the arrest itself was unjust. He called it “fair.”
“I already knew it was going to catch up to me,” he said. “I just didn’t know when.”
He said his children are in the United States and that he has little waiting for him in Mexico, explaining why he tried to conceal his identity. He also blamed alcohol for getting him “back in this mess,” while acknowledging responsibility for his decisions.
There is a human story there. There is also a government story that is awfully difficult to ignore.
Whatever one’s position on immigration, Perez-Garcia wasn’t an unknown person quietly living somewhere beyond the government’s radar. Local police knew him. ICE knew him. He had been removed before. He repeatedly encountered law enforcement.
And ICE says local authorities twice had the opportunity to transfer him directly to federal custody and didn’t. Then federal officers had to go looking for him.
MY QUICK TAKE
At what point does America’s immigration system stop resembling border enforcement and start resembling a frequent-flier rewards program? Cross illegally five times, and your sixth trip comes with complimentary luggage?
And I have to give Perez-Garcia credit for one thing: when ICE produced the mugshot, he apparently understood immediately that the game was over.
“I’m busted.”
Correct.
The mystery is why it took the government twenty years and this many bites at the apple to arrive at the same conclusion. Sanctuary politicians love telling us refusing ICE detainers makes immigrant communities safer.
But when the consequence is federal agents having to hunt down someone whom local police already had sitting inside a jail, perhaps somebody could explain the safety part again.
Preferably slowly.
DBS WIRE SOURCES:
- Fox News — 5-time illegal entrant admits ‘mistake’ that finally got him busted by ICE
- ICE — Newsroom and enforcement releases
- DHS — ICE enforcement operations in Los Angeles
