A Venezuelan man shot by a federal immigration officer in Texas spoke out from detention on Monday, pleading for better medical care during a press conference call with his lawyer.
Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, 28, was transferred from an Austin hospital to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention despite having a bullet lodged near his spine and being in significant pain.
“I haven’t received any medical attention. I’m in a lot of pain,” Garcés Pérez said during a call to his attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch. “I have expressed my pain to the guards.”
He spent the night sleeping on the floor of a cold detention center room about 140 miles from Austin, where he was taken hours after being shot by an ICE officer following a traffic stop on Sunday afternoon.
Lincoln-Goldfinch had told the Guardian earlier on Monday that the federal officer’s bullet remained inside her client. Garcés Pérez said he was told it is too close to his spine to be removed surgically at this time.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, has not responded to requests for comment. In an initial statement issued shortly before midnight on Sunday, DHS said Garcés Pérez was in stable condition and was “in federal custody pending removal” from the US.
The shooting did not come out of the blue, occurring amid an immigration enforcement surge in Austin.
ICE had already been active in the Texas capital recently, but matters escalated dramatically on Sunday when shots rang out.
Garcés Pérez was delivering a DoorDash food order on the city’s north side when ICE encountered him shortly before 1pm on Sunday. Video posted online appears to show an ICE officer getting out of his car and shooting at Garcés Pérez’s car three times.
His car had a large dent on the front passenger side. Garcés Pérez, hit once in the back between his shoulder blades, is a Venezuelan national who has lived in the US for two years, according to his lawyer, but had been ordered removed. He told onlookers he was shot because he had not stopped.
Garcés Pérez was taken to a downtown hospital for treatment but, according to lawyer Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, was taken away by ICE late Sunday afternoon.
For a few hours, his partner and lawyer could not locate him, but on Monday morning Lincoln-Goldfinch told the Guardian he had been found at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall.
“Bullet still lodged in his back. No pain meds,” Lincoln-Goldfinch texted on Monday.
Garcés Pérez said that when he called the attorney on Monday, a normal-looking car had pulled up next to him before veering toward him. When he eventually stopped and spoke to what turned out to be an ICE officer, he asked to move his vehicle to a nearby parking lot so it would be there if he was arrested. He was told he could not, and when he drove further, the ICE vehicle crashed into him before he was shot, he said.
Austin, the politically liberal capital of conservative Texas, has repeatedly found itself at the center of the immigration debate.
The state’s Republican leadership has often sought to make an example of the city, forcing local leaders to weaken Austin’s policy of non-cooperation with ICE.
Local leaders said this summer has marked a low-profile but aggressive surge in immigration enforcement in the region, spurred by a jump in ICE acting alone and relying less on state troopers to stop and hand over individuals.
“As mayor of Austin, I’m very angry about this,” Kirk Watson, a Democrat, said on Sunday. “A person being shot on the streets of Austin by someone purporting to be law enforcement, particularly ICE, is something that causes me to be unhappy and angry.”
DHS said it was leading the investigation into the shooting alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). However, Austin leaders have called for local and state involvement, citing public distrust of ICE.
The exact details leading up to the shooting remained unclear on Monday.
Video posted on social media shows a man running out of a black SUV and shooting at Garcés Pérez’s almost stationary blue sedan from behind it. Three gunshots ring out. A witness, Nedavia Bolaños, got closest to the scene and shared video with the Guardian of ICE officers standing next to the car as the man clutched his chest, before Austin police officers arrived and rendered first aid.
Within an hour, more than a hundred protesters had gathered at the site, chanting expletives against ICE and waving Mexican, American, and Guatemalan flags. Several protesters could be seen washing their eyes and mouths in pain after being sprayed with what they said was teargas or chemical spray.
The shooting came after several months of increased immigration enforcement, particularly in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, suburbs, and exurbs.
Austin city council member José “Chito” Vela, who represents the neighborhood where Garcés Pérez was shot, said he has heard constituents describe an enforcement bump driven by a rise in unilateral ICE action. While ICE was largely seen making immigration arrests after Texas Department of Public Safety traffic stops for the first year or so of the second Trump administration, they have begun to act increasingly on their own, Vela said.
City leaders had previously raised concerns over the increased action. Congressman Greg Casar, an Austin Democrat who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, sent a letter to DHS demanding cooperation in an “immediate, independent investigation” into the shooting, the full release of any footage federal authorities have of the incident, and “accountability for any wrongdoing by the agent responsible.”
Later on Monday, lawyers representing Garcés Pérez filed both a writ of habeas corpus and an injunction motion in court, hoping to stave off any attempt to deport him before an investigation is complete. In the application for the habeas petition requesting his release, Garcés Pérez’s lawyers argued that he qualified for a visa given to victims of crimes.
