Venezuelan man shot by ICE officer remains detained in Texas with bullet lodged in back

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Venezuelan man shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer was in custody Monday at an ICE detention center in Texas after he was released from a hospital with a bullet still lodged in his back, the man’s attorney said.

Speaking by phone during a news conference, Wilber Rafael Garces Perez said doctors didn’t remove the bullet because it’s near his spine. He said ICE pressed for him to be released quickly from the hospital so it could move him to a detention center. He said he had received no pain medication or treatment there, and had slept on the floor, before eventually being given a “pill” by a nurse on Monday.

Perez, 28, was making a DoorDash delivery in Austin on Sunday when his car was “sideswiped” twice by ICE officers in an unmarked truck, immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch told reporters Monday. He was taken to a hospital, she said, but was released later Sunday into ICE custody with the bullet still inside him.

Perez said ICE officers didn’t ask him to stop or turn on any flashing lights until after they had sideswiped him. He said he did a U-turn and was trying to park when the officers rammed his car and shot him in the back of the neck.

“I am not doing well due to the gunshot wound, and I have not received the medical attention that I require,” Perez said, speaking in Spanish over the phone as a member of his attorney’s staff translated during the news conference.

Perez was being detained at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) southwest of Austin, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. She said Perez told her in a prior phone call that he was being interrogated.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has released little information and has not said what prompted the shooting. In a statement early Monday, the department said it was investigating the shooting of a Venezuelan man in the U.S. illegally who “had a final order of removal.”

Homeland Security did not immediately respond to email messages seeking further comment on the shooting.

Perez entered the U.S. legally in 2024 after using CBP One, a program begun under President Joe Biden that set up appointments with U.S. authorities to be considered for asylum, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. President Donald Trump ended the program on his first day in office.

Perez’s attorneys said he was an asylum seeker and had a valid work permit, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. She said a judge issued a deportation order for Perez after he missed a hearing in immigration court because the hearing notice was sent to a former address.

“Not that being out of status would justify any of this at all,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said of the shooting in a social media post.

The shooting occurred amid a surge in ICE enforcement across the U.S. during Trump’s second term. During the summer, it reported more than 50,000 monthly arrests in July and August — a first for the agency.

Immigration officers have come under intense scrutiny amid a series of shootings during the crackdown. At least four people have been fatally shot by federal officers during immigration enforcement operations this year.

Local advocates, leaders of the civil rights group the League of United Latin American Citizens and two Democratic congressmen who represent parts of Austin called during the news conference for the creation of an independent body to review use-of-force incidents by ICE and refer suspected crimes to prosecutors.

They also urged Congress to ban ICE officers from making traffic stops, saying the officers are undertrained and too quick to resort to violence.

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat, has said he wants local police to have a role in investigating the shooting. Watson said it wouldn’t be appropriate for ICE to investigate on its own.

The area beneath an overpass where a large crowd of protesters had gathered Sunday near the shooting scene was quiet Monday. Trash-filled plastic bags were left below concrete pylons marked with anti-ICE graffiti.

Amid discarded police tape, people left candles, flowers and a sign that read “Justice for Wilber.”

Associated Press journalist Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed.