A Venezuelan national shot by an ICE agent during a traffic stop in Austin remains in federal custody pending removal, even as civil rights advocates and a local congressman press for an independent investigation into how he was wounded.
Wilber Rafael Garces Perez was hospitalized in serious but stable condition after the shooting Sunday. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed he is an illegal immigrant from Venezuela who entered the country under the Biden administration and has a final order of removal. “The illegal alien’s condition is stable, and he is in federal custody pending removal,” DHS said on X.
The League of United Latin American Citizens is asking that Garces Perez not be deported before the shooting is fully investigated. “Wilber is a victim of the shooting and the most important witness to it. You do not deport the key witness to your own officers’ use of force,” LULAC CEO Juan Peruano said Monday.
What the attorney says happened
Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, the attorney representing Garces Perez and his wife, gave this account: Garces Perez was working a DoorDash delivery when an unmarked black truck sideswiped him. He did not know the vehicle belonged to ICE, made a U-turn under a highway, and was struck a second time by the same truck before agents got out and shot him.
“The truck chased him and sideswiped him again. And the agents came out and shot him in the back of the neck and pulled him out of the car,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said.
Lincoln-Goldfinch also said Garces Perez went hours without adequate medical treatment. “We learned that at 4:00 he still had a bullet lodged in his back. He was shot here in his back, and they didn’t take the bullet out, and they didn’t give him pain medication. And they transferred him to ICE, to a processing center, where he spent the night without a bed,” she said.
She argued there was no justification for the shooting and called for ICE to stop conducting traffic stops altogether. “There is absolutely zero justification for having shot him in the back of the neck,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said. “ICE officers are over armed, overpaid, under trained and violent. They don’t know how to safely conduct traffic stops.”
She went further, accusing federal immigration officials of a pattern of dishonesty about incidents involving migrants. “We are fed up with ICE and DHS telling us lies about what has happened in these incidents where people are being murdered and shot,” she said.
A congressman weighs in
Rep. Lloyd Doggett backed the call for outside scrutiny, saying the agency’s public statements can’t be taken at face value. “ICE has no credibility anymore. It lies. We know it lies. We’ve seen it demonstrated again and again, and we need the kind of independent structure to demand some accountability,” Doggett said.
The shooting has already drawn protesters into the streets of Austin, and local officials have joined the push for an outside review of the agents’ conduct. DHS has said the shooting occurred during a law enforcement operation but has not detailed what preceded the agents opening fire.
For now, Garces Perez sits at the center of two competing federal interests: a deportation order DHS intends to carry out, and a use-of-force investigation for which advocates say his testimony is essential.
