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Man shot by US immigration agent describes pain of bullet still inside him
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 Monday.
Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, told reporters he was delivering an order for DoorDash on Sunday 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.
Hours later, his attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch said Garces Perez was "moved to another hospital as he is now experiencing left side paralysis," in a post on X.
The shooting in Austin, Texas, on Sunday 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 his lawyer maintains he was in the US "legally with a work permit."
Lincoln-Goldfinch told a press conference that he had earlier been transferred from a hospital to a detention center in Pearsall, some 135 miles (215 kilometers) southwest 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 center where he spent the night without a bed," Lincoln-Goldfinch said.
About a hundred demonstrators gathered outside the Texas Capitol on Monday night to protest ICE's actions.
"We are less safe when they're around," Rosalie Kendall, 40, told AFP.
"They're kidnapping our neighbors. They're disappearing people who are part of our community."
- The shooting -
Garces Perez confirmed that account Monday.
"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 lockup -
Garces Perez said after he was shot, an ambulance arrived and he couldn't 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 center.
"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 center, he said.
- Crackdown -
A makeshift shrine with flowers, candles and a sign reading "Justice 4 Wilber" was placed near the site of the shooting.
On Monday, a work crew painted over expletive-laced graffiti nearby, which expressed local outrage about ICE and the ongoing immigration crackdown.
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, 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 this year.
G.Palmiero--INP
