Venezuelan DoorDash driver shot by ICE detained with bullet lodged near spine

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez was delivering food for DoorDash in Austin on a Sunday afternoon when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot him in the back. The 28-year-old Venezuelan was hit after the officer's vehicle sideswiped his car. A bullet lodged near his spine. He was taken to the hospital, but four hours later—before the wound was fully treated—he was transferred to the South Texas Processing Center in Pearsall, Texas, roughly two hours away. The bullet remained inside him.

On Monday, speaking by phone during a news conference his attorney organized, Garces Perez described his condition in Spanish. He was in significant pain. The bullet could not be safely removed because of its proximity to his spine. He said he was being held in a cold room without a bed, and that he had no access to pain medication. "I am not doing well, and I am not receiving the medical attention that I require," he told reporters. His attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, confirmed that her client was detained despite his ongoing medical emergency.

Garces Perez's legal status made him vulnerable to this outcome. He had entered the United States in 2024 through the CBP One app, a program created during the Biden administration that allowed asylum seekers to book appointments at official border ports. He had obtained a work permit and was pursuing an asylum claim. But he missed a court hearing—the notice had been sent to an old address—and a deportation order was issued in his absence. When the ICE officer's vehicle struck his car, Garces Perez had no criminal record. He was simply working.

The Department of Homeland Security stated that Garces Perez had illegally entered the country and carried a final removal order, though his attorney disputed the characterization of his entry as illegal given the official app through which he arrived. The agency said Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE, was leading the investigation with FBI assistance. The officer who fired the shot was placed on administrative leave, standard procedure in such cases. DHS offered no timeline for the investigation's completion.

Local officials responded with alarm. U.S. Representative Greg Casar, a Democrat representing parts of Austin, noted that Garces Perez had no criminal history and condemned ICE operations in the city. "The vast majority of people being pulled over have zero criminal records," Casar said at the news conference. He pointed to ICE arrests of young children and raids on construction sites, arguing that such enforcement had not made Austin safer. He called for ICE to cease operations in the city.

Lincoln-Goldfinch demanded transparency, specifically requesting that ICE release body camera footage of the shooting. "The public deserves more than an agency's account of a shooting or killing," she said. She also called for an end to ICE traffic stops, citing a pattern of violence and family separations resulting from such encounters.

Garces Perez's case is not isolated. In July, an ICE officer shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Sr., a 52-year-old from Houston, after federal agents in unmarked vehicles pursued him while he was transporting his construction crew. Salgado had lived in the United States for more than thirty years. That same month, Colombian national Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 25, was also shot by an ICE officer. In another incident on Sunday, federal immigration officers attempted to arrest a man who turned out to be a U.S. citizen; he reported injuries to his head, neck, and teeth. Senator Angus King of Maine said that Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin acknowledged the Colombian man's shooting was part of an ICE operation. These incidents have intensified scrutiny of ICE traffic stops and the circumstances under which officers use force. Garces Perez remains detained, the bullet still in his back, waiting for answers about what happened and when he will receive proper medical care.