Man shot by ICE agent in Texas detained with bullet inside him: Lawyer

• A Venezuelan man, Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, was shot by an ICE agent in Texas and jailed with the bullet still inside his body, suffering pain and inadequate medical care.
• Garces Perez said the shooting happened after ICE agents rammed his vehicle and fired while he tried to safely stop, with his lawyer calling for an end to ICE traffic stops.
• The incident sparked local outrage, calls for an independent investigation, and criticism of ICE amid a wider immigration crackdown under President Trump and Biden administrations.

AUSTIN – A Venezuelan national shot and wounded by a US immigration agent in Texas was jailed with the bullet still inside his body, his lawyer said on Sept 21.

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, told reporters he was delivering an order for DoorDash on Sept 20 when his vehicle was rammed by an ICE agent and he was shot.

“I’m in a lot of pain because the shot fractured my clavicle and at the hospital where they took me they couldn’t remove the bullet because it’s close to the spinal cord... I’m not doing very well, I still have the bullet inside,” he told reporters by phone.

The shooting in Austin, Texas, on Sept 20 marked the latest instance of violence by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents tasked with enforcing President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Homeland Security Investigations, which is a part of ICE, is leading the investigation into the shooting with the assistance of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security said.

Garces Perez had “illegally entered our country under the Biden administration and had a final order of removal,” DHS said on X.

But Garces Perez’s attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, maintained he was in the US “legally with a work permit”.

She told a press conference that her client was transferred from a hospital to a detention centre in Pearsall, some 215km south-west of Austin.

“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 centre where he spent the night without a bed,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said.

The shooting

Garces Perez confirmed that account on Sept 21.

“I was on my way with an order from the DoorDash app and then a truck pulls up next to me. It doesn’t turn on its lights or anything, it just tries to hit me,” he said.

Then a black pickup cut him off and an agent got out and demanded his documents, Garces Perez said.

Garces Perez asked to be allowed to pull over from the middle of the road, but agents refused.

“I made a U-turn and that’s when he started chasing me, thinking I was going to run away, but I was looking for a place to leave my car safely,” Garces Perez said.

“That’s when he hit me twice and shot me.”

He doesn’t know how many shots were fired at him.

“There is absolutely zero justification for having shot him,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said.

“This is why we’re calling for a stop to ICE traffic stops. ICE officers are over armed, overpaid, undertrained, and violent.”

From hospital to lock-up

Garces Perez said after he was shot, an ambulance arrived and he could not move.

At the hospital, he said he was told tests were being run to prepare for surgery, but the operation to remove the bullet was halted.

“A doctor comes in and tells me no, because they were in a hurry to discharge me and have me taken” to the detention centre.

“I told the doctor, ‘How are you going to leave the bullet in there if it still hurts?’” Garces Perez said. He maintains he did not receive adequate medical care at the hospital.

In the early morning, a nurse gave him a painkiller, he said.

Then he was taken to a room with no bed at the detention centre, he said.

Crackdown

A makeshift shrine with flowers, candles, and a sign reading “Justice 4 Wilber” was placed near the site where the shooting occurred.

On Sept 21, a work crew painted over expletive-laced graffiti nearby, which express local outrage about ICE and the ongoing immigration crackdown.

Garces Perez’s shooting prompted outcry from Democratic leaders in Texas. James Talarico, who has emerged as the best chance in decades for Democrats to win a Senate seat in Texas, called for an independent investigation of the ICE shooting in Austin.

“Previous incidents have shown that this agency cannot be trusted to report all the facts,” Talarico said in a statement on X.

“We need a full, independent investigation that includes the release of any and all available footage.”

US Representative Greg Casar, a Democrat from Texas, pushed for “immediate release of the body camera footage, and accountability for any ICE officer who broke the law.”

Trump campaigned for president on a promise to expel millions of undocumented migrants, and has taken a series of dramatic actions since returning to the White House.

Nearly 51,000 undocumented migrants were arrested in the United States in August, according to DHS figures.

Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, was shot by ICE in March 2025, in what the Texas Tribune said was the first known killing by immigration agents of an American in Trump’s second term.

More recently, a Mexican man named Lorenzo Salgado died in July after he was shot by an ICE officer in Houston, Texas.

Two Americans – Renee Good and Alex Pretti – were shot and killed by federal immigration agents in separate incidents in Minnesota during a crackdown on undocumented migrants in the northern state earlier in 2026. AFP, BLOOMBERG