Venezuelan man shot by ICE remains detained, lawyer says

A Venezuelan delivery driver shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Austin, Texas, is being held in immigration detention with a bullet still lodged near his spine and without adequate medical care, his attorney said Monday.

Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, 28, spoke by phone from the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall during a news conference, saying in Spanish that he was in significant pain. He said doctors did not remove the bullet because it was close to his spine.

“I am not doing well, and I am not receiving the medical attention that I require,” Garcés Pérez said, according to CBS News. He said he had been held in a cold room with no bed. NBC News reported that he said he arrived at the detention center around 4 a.m., slept on the floor and did not receive pain relief until he was given an unknown pill Monday morning.

Garcés Pérez was shot early Sunday afternoon while making deliveries for DoorDash. His attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said an unmarked black truck sideswiped his car, then chased him and sideswiped him again after he made a U-turn under a highway. “He didn’t know it was ICE,” she said, according to NBC News. She said agents then got out and shot him in the back of the neck before pulling him from the car.

A Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson said the agency received a request for assistance from ICE for a vehicle pursuit involving a blue Toyota Corolla, NBC News reported.

Videos verified by NBC News show a dark-colored SUV and a blue sedan facing each other after the sound of screeching tires. At least three gunshots can be heard as a person approaches the sedan, which then lurches forward. Another video shows Garcés Pérez hunched over in the driver’s seat, holding his upper chest near his shoulder, as officers gather around him. He is later handcuffed, seated on the ground and shown with a large bloodstain down his back as officers cut open his shirt, revealing a bullet hole.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said late Sunday that Garcés Pérez was in stable condition and in federal custody pending removal. DHS said Homeland Security Investigations, part of ICE, is leading the investigation with assistance from the FBI. The department also said Garcés Pérez entered the United States illegally under the Biden administration and had a final order of removal.

Lincoln-Goldfinch disputed the characterization, saying Garcés Pérez entered the U.S. from Venezuela in 2024 through the CBP One app, had a work permit and was seeking asylum. She said he was ordered deported in absentia after a hearing notice was sent to an old address, even though he had notified immigration court of his address change. A senior administration official told NBC News that Garcés Pérez had no criminal history beyond being in the country illegally.

Multiple law enforcement sources told CBS News the ICE officer who allegedly fired at Garcés Pérez has been placed on administrative leave, a standard step in pending investigations.

Lawmakers and advocates called for Garcés Pérez’s release, medical care and more transparency, including body camera footage. “Wilber is a victim of the shooting and the most important witness to it. You do not deport the key witness to your own officer’s use of force,” said Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, said Garcés Pérez should be released from detention. “The federal government should not be allowed to shoot you and then disappear you from the country so that no one can be held responsible,” he said.

The shooting follows other recent ICE shootings. CBS News reported that an ICE officer fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, in Houston in July after agents in unmarked vehicles pursued him, and NBC News reported that an ICE officer later shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, after a traffic stop. NBC News reported that neither man was the intended target of those immigration operations.