ICE agent shot and wounded Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan man, in Austin, Texas. (X- @noeliaizarza)
Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, said he was delivering a DoorDash order in Austin on Sunday when an ICE agent allegedly rammed his vehicle and shot him. Lincoln-Goldfinch said Perez was transferred from a hospital to an ICE detention centre in Pearsall, about 135 miles (215 km) southwest of Austin. The shooting is the latest instance of violence involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents enforcing President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, AFP reported.
A Venezuelan national shot and wounded by a US immigration agent in Texas was transferred to an ICE detention centre with the bullet still lodged in his body, his lawyer said Monday. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on X that Perez had “illegally entered our country under the Biden administration and had a final order of removal”. “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. Perez said a truck pulled up alongside his vehicle while he was on his way to deliver the order and tried to hit him without using lights or sirens. He said a black pickup then cut him off and an agent got out and demanded his documents. Perez said he asked to pull over from the middle of the road but the agents refused.
His attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, disputed that account, saying Perez was in the US legally with a work permit.