A Guatemalan national illegally in the U.S. since 2016 likely will be deported after he was arrested for a second time in January for drunken driving in Kailua-Kona without a license or insurance.
Rudy Perez, 37, was arrested by officers with the Hawaii Police Department Jan. 10 on suspicion of operating a vehicle under the influence of an intoxicant, driving without insurance and a license.
On Nov. 11, 2020, Perez was arrested on suspicion of driving drunk without a license and insurance. On Jan. 6, 2021, he was found guilty of drunk driving and fined $250. The remaining charges were dismissed in state court.
Perez was deported from the U.S. to Guatemala on Dec. 19, 2012, at Del Rio, Texas.
Perez, who navigates federal court with the help of a Spanish interpreter, allegedly told agents that he most recently reentered the United States in Arizona in 2016 and then traveled to Hawaii, according to federal court records.
He appeared in federal court Wednesday for a detention hearing and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing May 27, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry M. Kurren.
He is being held at the Federal Detention Center, Honolulu. Perez was arrested by Homeland Security Investigations special agents May 1 in Kona.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion to detain Perez without bail in part because he is “a citizen of a foreign country or unlawfully admitted person.”
Perez’s appearance in federal court is one of at least a half-dozen since March following the arrest of illegal immigrants who allegedly committed crimes in Hawaii.
The prosecutions come amid a nationwide push by President Donald Trump to use the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest and deport people who violate U.S. immigration law.
Federal agents always have prioritized arresting violent offenders and illegal immigrants convicted of crimes.
Targeted immigration enforcement actions require significant investigation, search warrants and collaboration with other federal law enforcement before agents go out into the field and make arrests.
ICE officials have said that legal, law-abiding immigrants are not being profiled, targeted or arrested.
In Hawaii, the foreign-born share of the population was 17.8% in 2023, higher than the U.S. overall at 14.3%, and up from 17.5% in the state since 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
There are about 51,000 illegal immigrants living in Hawaii, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Agents working with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations and agents with the FBI; Drug Enforcement Administration; U.S. Marshals Service; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Coast Guard arrested 50 people from May 5-8 on Oahu, Maui and Hawaii island for alleged immigration violations.
That operation included the mistaken detention of a group of international teachers working legally in the U.S., and a U.S. citizen.
Federal agents served a search warrant on a Kahului home looking for a Mexican national who had not lived there in a year, detaining about a dozen teachers for 45 minutes.
The immigration enforcement actions and political climate are causing anxiety and hurting business for legal immigrants working in Hawaii.
Armando Rodriguez, who along with his wife, Karina, own the 13-acre Aloha Star Coffee Farms in Captain Cook on Hawaii Island, said he will see a 30% drop in business because he can’t recruit legal seasonal workers in the current climate of citizenship anxiety.
“Whatever country you come from, we’re ambassadors for our country. We should be on our best behavior. I don’t think we should be drunk driving, we should make our country proud of us,” said Armando Rodriguez, who noted in an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that he came to the U.S. at the age of 8. “Having served in the (U.S.) military, we take an oath to defend the Constitution.
“You always believe you have rights … everybody is scared. Even the Hawaiian people are scared. They look Hispanic; they are scared of being harassed. This is the aloha state, more family-oriented people live here. We may look a little bit different, but we all have the same values. We come from different parts of the world but we all have the same values here.”
In 2023, Armando Rodriguez, a U.S. Army veteran, founded the Aloha Latinos Association, a nonprofit based in Kealakekua.
Armando’s wife, Karina, also a legal U.S. immigrant, told the Star-Advertiser in an interview that their business recruits five to eight legal seasonal workers each year to help with the harvest.
She said she is never in favor of breaking any law but she is in favor of “human beings treated with dignity and respect.”
The legal workers the Rodriguezes counted on for the last five years are afraid of being detained or having their paper’s pulled.
“It’s very disappointing and sad,” Karina Rodriguez said. “I am not in favor of breaking the law. I am in favor — the people that have been working here hard — contributing to the economy, not committing any crime — they should be given a chance to normalize their situation. They are paying taxes, contributing to the economy. That is not being seen … (The belief that) they are here illegally (and) they are the source of all our problems, that is not true.”
