ICE Officer Who Shot, Potentially Paralyzed Austin Man Wasn’t Wearing Bodycam: Report
More details are coming to light about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot and injured a man in Austin, Texas, on Sunday.
The ICE officer who shot Venezuelan national Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez was reportedly a new recruit and was not wearing a body camera at the time of the incident, according to three Department of Homeland Security officials who spoke to The Atlantic.
During a Monday news conference, Pérez’s attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch said agents in unmarked vehicles “sideswiped” his car before firing shots inside his vehicle.
“There was not a foot chase as they said that there was,” Lincoln-Goldfinch told CNN. “He didn’t even know he was dealing with ICE until he was shot.”
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Pérez, who entered the U.S. legally as an asylum-seeker in 2024 and had a valid work permit, was initially hospitalized before being sent to a detention center 130 miles south of Austin.
Late Monday, Lincoln-Goldfinch said her client had since been sent back into medical care to treat paralysis on the left side of his body. A bullet remains lodged in his upper torso.
“I am not doing well due to the gunshot wound, and I have not received the medical attention that I require,” Pérez said during a phone call into the Monday press conference.
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Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) called Pérez’s return to medical care a “positive first step” in a Monday post on X, though he added, “Now, we have to make sure he fully recovers, is reunited with his family, and gets to tell law enforcement the full story of how he was shot in the back by ICE.”
According to The Atlantic, the officers involved in the shooting were out patrolling in separate cars when they checked the license plate of Pérez’s blue Toyota Corolla and saw he had an outstanding deportation order from an immigration judge.
DHS officials claim agents then attempted to pull Pérez over and detain him before he drove away and guns were pulled.
The shooting comes after ICE officers shot and killed Mexican construction contractor Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas, in July. This summer, ICE arrests reportedly surged to 50,000 a month.