The ICE officer who shot a Venezuelan man last weekend in Austin was a recent hire who was not wearing his body camera, three officials at the Department of Homeland Security with knowledge of the incident told me. The officer, who has not been publicly identified, was hired last year, according to two of the officials, but he previously worked for another federal law-enforcement agency, one of the officials said. The officials were not authorized to discuss the investigation into the shooting, which left Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez with a bullet lodged in his upper torso, according to his attorney.
ICE officials have rushed to distribute body-worn cameras to officers since the fatal shootings in July of a Mexican construction contractor in Texas and a Colombian delivery driver in Maine. Officers making arrests are required to have the cameras at all times. The agency has directed officers to activate the devices prior to engaging in enforcement activity, the three officials said, and ICE instructs them to stop recording only when the incident has safely concluded. Officers who do not follow these instructions are required to submit a written statement to their supervisors and could face possible disciplinary action, the three officials said.
DHS and ICE public-affairs officials did not immediately respond to questions about the incident in Austin and whether the officer will face consequences.
On Sunday, the officer was working with a partner who was driving in a separate vehicle. That second officer had a body-worn camera that was turned on, two officials told me. The officers were checking license plates using a system that helps them find targets for arrest using commercial databases and federal immigration files. When they ran the plates from the blue Toyota Corolla driven by Garcés Pérez, the officers saw he had an outstanding deportation order from an immigration judge.
The ICE officers, who were driving unmarked vehicles, attempted to pull Garcés Pérez over, but he drove away, nearly striking one of the officers, according to one of the DHS officials. The official said the incident was recorded by the body camera of the ICE officer’s partner. The officers followed Garcés Pérez in their vehicles. The officer without the body camera found Garcés Pérez and attempted to detain him. When Garcés Pérez attempted to drive away again, that officer pulled his gun and fired, striking Garcés Pérez in the back, both of the officials told me. A bystander video recorded just after the shooting shows an officer wearing a cap and a face covering standing next to the Corolla speaking with Garcés Pérez, who clutches at the wound on his back and winces in pain.
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Garcés Pérez, 28, briefly received medical treatment for the gunshot wound, then was taken to an ICE detention center southwest of Austin. As his attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, gathered with supporters and journalists at a news conference yesterday, Garcés Pérez addressed the crowd by phone and with the help of a translator. “I have not received the medical attention that I require,” Garcés Pérez said.
Lincoln-Goldfinch said that Garcés Pérez was taken out of the hospital after just four hours and then had to sleep on the floor of the detention center. She said he was moved to a hospital after reporting “left-side paralysis” and severe pain. “He should have stayed in the hospital all of this time,” she told CNN. Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas, a Democrat, said this morning that Garcés Pérez had been transferred back to the ICE detention center.
Lincoln-Goldfinch said her client has a valid driver’s license and was making deliveries for DoorDash when ICE attempted to stop him and rammed his car. She said Garcés Pérez entered the United States legally in 2024 through the CBP One program, which allowed asylum seekers to enter the country and pursue asylum claims through a “parole” program offered by the Biden administration.
President Trump canceled that program, so if Garcés Pérez did not obtain another form of legal-immigration status, he would be potentially subject to ICE arrest. Lincoln-Goldfinch said her client was issued a deportation order because his court documents were sent to the wrong address. “I see this all the time in my practice and it’s a mistake we can easily correct. It does not justify shooting people in the street,” Lincoln-Goldfinch wrote in a social-media post.
The Trump administration launched a hiring spree at ICE last year to add 10,000 deportation officers and more than double the number of personnel deployed on U.S. streets. The officer who fatally shot the Colombian immigrant Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine was also a new hire. Veteran officers at ICE have repeatedly shared their concerns with me about the qualifications and competence of new recruits, especially those sent through a fast-track training course in which classroom hours were cut by more than half. ICE has ended the fast-track program for new hires, but one senior ICE official told me that a large number of the officers the agency recruited have since been disqualified or let go.
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ICE arrests increased this summer to 50,000 a month, the highest levels ever recorded by the agency, which remains under intense White House pressure to carry out 1 million deportations a year. After Durán Guerrero’s killing, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin ordered a pause on most vehicle stops by ICE officers, citing the need to finish distributing body cameras and improve officer training. But Trump reversed that order a day later, after immigration-enforcement hard-liners protested.
ICE training instructs officers that the use of deadly force against a fleeing suspect is not permissible unless there is an imminent risk of harm to law-enforcement personnel or the public. DHS’s inspector general is investigating the fatal shooting of Durán Guerrero in Maine as well as the killing of 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston on July 7. The findings from those investigations have not been released.
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