An illegal immigrant from Mexico admitted in court to a harebrained scheme where he was impersonating a Border Patrol agent to try to thwart federal agents from carrying out arrests and deportations in southern California.
Jaime Ernesto Alvarez-Gonzalez drove a Ford F-150 he’d tried to make look like a Border Patrol vehicle, complete with a police lightbar on his dashboard, radio antennae on the roof, a Border Patrol sticker in the windshield, handcuffs hanging from the rearview mirror — and a license plate frame with the misspelling “Ferderal Truck.”
A Border Patrol agent who was assigned to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was, apparently, fooled when he spotted the truck behind him on Jan. 8. He diverted from his mission to “deconflict,” or make sure he wasn’t working at cross-purposes with the Border Patrol.
Alvarez-Gonzalez kept following the agent, who began to question the situation and pulled into a gas station parking and waited for backup. That’s where a confrontation occurred, prosecutors said in court documents.
“Defendant was wearing a thin green line hat commonly used to show support for border patrol and a facemask commonly worn by federal agents on interior operations,” prosecutors said.
Alvarez-Gonzalez then told the agents to leave the community and they departed, though they were “chased” by others Mr. Alvarez-Gonzalez called his “reinforcements.”
He was arrested six days after the confrontation, on Jan. 14. At that time, authorities said he had an FBI hat and a badge he’d made to look like an FBI credential — though as with the license plate holder, it botched the wording.
Investigators said Alvarez-Gonzalez, 53, came to the U.S. on a short-term visitor’s visa but overstayed, making his presence unlawful.
Authorities said they traced three guns to him, which, given his unlawful status, is also illegal. They said he lied, claiming U.S. citizenship, when he bought guns in 2015 and 2016.
And they found body armor, a Border Patrol cap and photos where Mr. Alvarez-Gonzalez posed in front of a Border Patrol vehicle and wore what appeared to be a badge around his neck.
After authorities discovered the weapons, they moved to upgrade charges against Mr. Alvarez-Gonzalez, who then tried to speed up his own deportation.
He pleaded guilty to impersonating a federal agent.
