Five days after his main-event loss to Jake Paul, former middleweight champion and son of the Mexican legend, Julio Cesar Chavez Jnr, has been arrested, the Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday.
Calling Chavez Jnr. a “criminal illegal alien,” DHS announced Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “processing [Chavez Jnr] for expedited removal from the U.S.”
“Chavez is a Mexican citizen who has an active arrest warrant in Mexico for his involvement in organized crime and trafficking firearms, ammunition and explosives,” a DHS statement reported.
Chavez Jnr, who lost Saturday by unanimous decision to Paul at Honda Center in Anaheim, California, entered the U.S. legally with a tourist visa that expired in February 2024, DHS says.
“Chavez is also believed to be an affiliate of the Sinaloa Cartel, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization,” DHS announced upon ICE’s arrest of Chavez Jnr in Studio City, California on Wednesday.
Sean Gibbons, Chavez Jnr’s advisor, described the arrest as a “visa issue,” and when asked by text message if Chavez Jnr is part of the Sinaloa cartel, Gibbons replied, “Fuck no.”
In its prepared statement, DHS alleges that on April 2, 2024, “Chavez filed an application for Lawful Permanent Resident status. Chavez’s application was based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen, who is connected to the Sinaloa Cartel through a prior relationship with the now-deceased son of the infamous cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
“On December 17, 2024, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services made a referral to ICE that Chavez is an egregious public safety threat. However, an entry in a DHS law enforcement system under the Biden administration indicated Chavez was not an immigration enforcement priority.
“On January 4, 2025, the Biden administration allowed Chavez to reenter the country and paroled him into the country at the San Ysidro port of entry.
“Following multiple fraudulent statements on his application to become a Lawful Permanent Resident, he was determined to be in the country illegally and removable on [Friday],” as he was weighing in for the Paul fight.
While Chavez trained in the U.S. for Paul and Saturday’s event passed without interruption by ICE after numerous raids throughout Southern California, it was emphasized in the DHS statement that President Trump and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem “will not allow vicious cartels to operate on American soil.”
“This Sinaloa Cartel affiliate with an active arrest warrant for trafficking guns, ammunition and explosives was arrested by ICE. It is shocking the previous [Biden] administration flagged this criminal illegal alien as a public safety threat, but chose to not prioritize his removal and let him leave and come back into our country,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the statement.
“Under President Trump, no one is above the law – including world-famous athletes. Our message to any cartel affiliates in the U.S. is clear: We will find you and you will face consequences. The days of unchecked cartel violence are over.”
DHS detailed Chavez Jnr’s rap sheet in its statement, starting with his 2012 arrest, conviction and 13-day jailing for driving under the influence of alcohol.
In 2023, a District judge issued an arrest warrant “for the offense of organized crime for the purpose of committing crimes of weapons trafficking and manufacturing crimes, in the modality of those who participate in clandestinely bringing weapons, ammunition, cartridges, explosives into the country; and those who manufacture weapons, ammunition, cartridges, and explosives without the corresponding permit.”
In early 2024, the Los Angeles Police Department arrested Chavez Jnr with illegal possession of an assault weapon and manufacture or import of a short-barreled rifle, resulting in a conviction.
Chavez Jnr’s arrest occurs just as President Trump and ICE have been boosted by the approval of the “big, beautiful bill” and plans to build a makeshift detention facility in Florida dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” that can house as many as 3,000 migrants.
“President Donald J. Trump the Sinaloa Cartel as a Foreign Terrorist Organization,” the DHS statement said. “The Sinaloa Cartel targeted and viciously U.S. Marine Corps veteran Nicholas Quets and has kidnapped, tortured and killed many other Americans. The Sinaloa Cartel has also played a major role in the trafficking of fentanyl across the U.S.-Mexico border.”
