Venezuelan shot by ICE in Texas returns to hospital after detention

A Venezuelan man shot by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer and taken to a detention centre in Texas with a bullet lodged in his back was back in hospital by Monday night, his attorney said.

Wilber Rafael Garces 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 on Monday. He was shot and taken to hospital, she said, but was released later on Sunday into ICE custody with the bullet still inside him.

Speaking by phone during a news conference, Perez said doctors didn’t remove the bullet because it is near his spine. He said ICE pressed for him to be released quickly from hospital so it could move him to a detention centre. 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.

By Monday night, Lincoln-Goldfinch said he had been taken to hospital.

Representative Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat, described this as a positive first step.

“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,” he said.

Perez said earlier on Monday ICE officers didn’t ask him to stop and did not turn on 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 I require,” Perez said, speaking in Spanish over the phone while a member of his attorney’s staff translated during the news conference.

Perez had been detained at the South Texas ICE processing centre in Pearsall, about 209km southwest of Austin, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. She said Perez told her in a phone call 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 on Monday, the department said it was investigating the shooting of a Venezuelan man in the US 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 US legally in 2024 after using CBP One, a programme begun under former president Joe Biden that set up appointments with US authorities to be considered for asylum, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. President Donald Trump ended the programme 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 about the shooting in a social media post.