The Briefing:
- An ICE agent shot 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez in the torso during a Sunday DoorDash run in North Austin, and he was released from the hospital straight into federal custody hours later, before his family could learn where he'd been taken.
- Three different accounts exist for what happened right before the shots — a possible foot chase, a car boxed in from behind, and a vehicle pursuit state troopers hadn't yet reached — and no video or body-camera footage has been released to settle it.
- It's at least the third ICE-linked shooting of a person in Texas since March 2025, part of a wider national count that puts the number of people shot by ICE and CBP agents under the second Trump administration at roughly 20, with a July congressional letter putting an earlier figure at 22 shootings and six deaths.
A federal immigration agent shot and wounded a DoorDash driver in North Austin on Sunday afternoon, then released him from the hospital directly into ICE custody before his family could find out where he'd gone. The case, confirmed by CNN and NBC News, is already being weighed against a string of earlier ICE shootings that local and federal officials describe very differently.
Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan national, was mid-delivery when the shooting happened just before 1 p.m. at the intersection of U.S. 183 and Anderson Square, according to CNN. Austin-Travis County EMS Chief Robert Luckritz said he took a single gunshot wound to the torso and was rushed to Dell Seton Medical Center in serious but stable condition, per the Austin American-Statesman. DoorDash confirmed to CNN that he was actively working a delivery at the time.
Three Versions of What Came First
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis told reporters a foot pursuit may have preceded the shooting, while cautioning that her department hadn't yet been briefed by federal agents, per the Statesman. His attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, described a different scene on Instagram: agents boxing in his car and firing through the rear window. A third account comes from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which told NBC News its troopers were called in to help ICE with a pursuit of a blue Toyota Corolla — but that the shooting had already happened by the time they arrived. No agency has released video or body-camera footage that would confirm any single version.
Hours after the shooting, DHS posted on X that Garcés Pérez had entered the country illegally under the Biden administration and carried a final removal order, adding that "the illegal alien's condition is stable, and he is in federal custody pending removal". Lincoln-Goldfinch rejects that account: she told the Texas Tribune that he held a valid work permit and had entered the U.S. lawfully, and his wife has said she was never aware of a removal order. Neither side has produced documentation, so both versions remain unverified claims rather than settled fact.
Six Hours in the Dark
Garcés Pérez's wife arrived at the hospital around 12:30 p.m. and was later told by staff that he wasn't there and asked to leave, Lincoln-Goldfinch has said. He wasn't discharged until roughly 4:30 p.m., moved directly into what his attorney called ICE custody, and his family still didn't know where he'd been taken by that evening. "We are deeply concerned that his wife and family have not been permitted to see him," Lincoln-Goldfinch said, per NBC News.
Officials Say They've Watched This Before
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said the shooting didn't surprise him, citing what he described as ICE's aggressive tactics in cities like Chicago and Minneapolis. "While I'm unhappy and I'm angry about it, I'm not surprised at all," he said, according to CNN. The two fatal shootings most frequently invoked in that comparison — of U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti — both happened in Minneapolis in January, 17 days apart, during a federal enforcement surge there, per CBS Minnesota.
Texas has its own recent record. In July, an ICE officer fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old father of three, during a stop of his work van near Houston; DHS said he tried to ram an agent's vehicle, a claim the men riding with him have disputed and that remains unproven, according to CNN. Six days later, an ICE officer in Biddeford, Maine, killed 25-year-old Colombian delivery driver Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero after his car was struck by an agency vehicle, per the Washington Post. Sunday's shooting is at least the third tied to ICE in Texas alone since March 2025, when a Homeland Security Investigations agent fatally shot 23-year-old U.S. citizen Ruben Ray Martinez in South Padre Island — a case that didn't surface publicly for nearly a year, as NPR has reported.
A National Count That Keeps Moving
A running CNN tracker puts the number of people shot by on-duty ICE and CBP agents under the second Trump administration at roughly 20. That figure sits oddly against an earlier one: a July letter signed by 198 House Democrats cited 22 shootings and six deaths as of that month, according to The Hill — a higher tally from two months earlier than the more recent tracker shows. Neither source explains the gap, so it's presented here as an open discrepancy rather than a resolved one.
Homeland Security Investigations, working with the FBI, says it's leading the federal review of Sunday's shooting, though it had released no findings by Sunday night, per CNN. Rep. Greg Casar, whose district covers the shooting site, sent DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin a letter demanding a congressional briefing by Sept. 28 along with full body- and dash-camera footage. "Over and over, ICE has shot people and then lied about what happened," Casar said, according to NPR.
The Travis County District Attorney's office is asking to be treated as a "co-equal partner in the investigation" rather than leaving the review to federal agents alone, per CNN. The League of United Latin American Citizens also weighed in, with national president Roman Palomares saying accountability shouldn't rest with the agency that did the shooting: "No agency should be the sole judge of its own conduct," according to a CNN report carried by Yahoo News. As of Sunday night, DHS had not said whether the agent involved was wearing a body camera.
