Federal prosecutors charge Venezuelan delivery worker shot in back by ICE agent in Austin

A 28-year-old Venezuelan man who was shot in the back by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Austin, Texas, has been charged in federal court with assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer, a crime that can carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Wilber Rafael Garces Perez made his first court appearance in the Texas capital on Tuesday, roughly nine days after the shooting that left a bullet lodged in his body.

The incident occurred on September 20 while Garces Perez was working as a DoorDash food delivery driver near a shopping centre in Austin, according to the complaint filed by prosecutors on Monday and described in court documents. He was taken into custody and has since been held at a detention facility in south Texas.

Prosecutors' account of how the encounter began centres on his vehicle. According to the federal complaint, immigration officers observed that Garces Perez's car had its emergency lights flashing and ran a database check on the registration. The search reportedly showed the vehicle was registered to him and that he was the subject of a final order of removal from the United States.

When the officers approached the car, Garces Perez handed over his driver's licence through a partially opened window but did not exit the vehicle, the complaint says. He asked the officers to wait until his wife could arrive to collect the car. Court filings describe the exchange up to that point as "pleasant and not aggressive", a characterisation that sits in sharp contrast to what prosecutors say happened next.

About a minute later, according to the complaint, Garces Perez "abruptly" shut his window and drove away, striking one of the officers in the torso with the driver's side mirror of his car. That officer pursued him in his own vehicle and caught up shortly afterwards. In the complaint, the officer alleges that Garces Perez then attempted to drive into him, which the officer says prompted him to open fire.

Garces Perez has offered a markedly different version of the moments before he was shot. He told federal investigators that after a brief chase, a law enforcement sport utility vehicle struck his car, causing it to spin around, and that the officer then opened fire, hitting him in the back. His account, contained in an affidavit, does not include any attempt by him to strike an officer or to ram a police vehicle.

One of the central issues in the case is the thin public evidentiary record. No footage of the events described in the complaint — including the shooting itself — has been made publicly available. Video that has circulated online shows only the aftermath, with Garces Perez injured inside his car. The complaint relies on unreleased body-camera footage from one of the two ICE officers who stopped him. According to the affidavit, the second officer was not wearing a body camera; that officer says he was struck by the side mirror and that he subsequently shot Garces Perez.

The shooter's account therefore rests largely on the statements of an officer who was not equipped with a body camera, while the man he shot remains in federal custody. Legal observers note that such evidentiary gaps frequently become decisive at trial, where the credibility of testimony and the admissibility of digital evidence can shape outcomes as much as the underlying facts.

Meanwhile, attention has turned to Garces Perez's medical condition. Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, his lawyer, said on Sunday that the bullet was still lodged in his body and that he has a fractured clavicle. In a social media post, she explained that supporters were concerned he could develop sepsis or suffer permanent damage if he did not undergo surgery soon. The Department of Homeland Security has countered that he is receiving adequate medical care in custody.

Beyond the criminal case, his legal team is also seeking to block his removal from the United States. Garces Perez entered the country in 2024 through CBP One, an online portal expanded under former President Joe Biden that allowed asylum seekers to schedule appointments with immigration authorities at the US-Mexico border. President Donald Trump terminated the programme on his first day back in office, accusing it of fuelling an immigration crisis, and his administration subsequently relaunched it as CBP Home, a self-deportation portal.

Lincoln-Goldfinch has said Garces Perez was lawfully seeking asylum in the US and held a valid work permit. She has also asserted that he was ordered deported only after failing to appear at an immigration court hearing, because the notice of that hearing was mailed to an old address. He is due back before a federal immigration judge on Wednesday for a separate proceeding on whether he is entitled to remain in the country — a hearing that will proceed while the assault charge is still unresolved.

The prosecution comes amid an intensification of immigration enforcement during Trump's second term. ICE has reported making more than 50,000 arrests in each of July and August, a pace that has put federal agents in more direct contact with the public and, in cases like this one, under sharper scrutiny over the use of lethal force.

Analysts say the coming weeks could set a test for how federal courts handle disputes that sit at the intersection of immigration enforcement and criminal prosecution — where the government is simultaneously detaining a man it wants removed, charging him with a serious felony, and defending an officer's use of gunfire, while the defence contests both the shooting and the original deportation order.

What is likely to determine the outcome is evidence that has not yet been made public: the full body-camera recordings, medical records, and any further testimony from witnesses. Until then, two incompatible accounts of a roughly one-minute sequence outside a shopping centre in Austin remain in circulation — one supported by an affidavit and unreleased video, the other by a wounded man in federal detention whose version has yet to be tested against the full record.