ICE shot Wilber Rafael Garces Perez in a reckless Austin surge

By Alma Cordero · Reporting from El Paso ·

An ICE agent shot a Venezuelan delivery driver in Austin, exposing a pattern of state violence and gutted training that turns city streets into combat zones.

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez was just trying to finish his shift. He is a 28-year-old Venezuelan man. He has lived in Austin for about two years. He has no criminal history. On Sunday, September 20, 2026, while making a DoorDash delivery, an ICE agent shot him in the torso. According to the Austin American-Statesman, the shooting happened near Anderson Square and Research Boulevard. Wilber called his wife, Elizdar, while "yelling in pain" from his hospital bed. Then the system did what it always does to mi gente. Hospital staff ran Elizdar and her lawyer off the property. They were told that because Wilber was in ICE custody, the hospital would not confirm he was there.

A trigger pulled by a gutted agency

The Department of Homeland Security calls Wilber an "illegal alien." They say he is in custody pending removal. Police Chief Lisa Davis says a "foot pursuit" happened before the shooting. But we have to ask who trained the man behind the trigger. The dossier shows a terrifying truth. ICE internally gutted its basic training program by 40 percent. They cut 240 hours of instruction. This included 56 hours of firearms training and dozens of hours on legal authority.

The Trump administration defends these tactics. They claim they are necessary for public safety and securing the border. They argue that mass deportations require aggressive enforcement. This is the strongest case they can make. But you do not secure a border by shooting a delivery driver in the torso in North Austin. You do not protect the public by deploying agents who missed nearly half of their basic training. This is not law enforcement. It is a paramilitary surge funded by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025. This law made ICE the largest and most well-funded federal law enforcement agency in the country. When you give a badge and a gun to someone who hasn't been taught the law, la rabia is the only thing that follows.

The long record of state lies

This is not a fluke. It is a pattern. We have seen this movie before. In July 2026, ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston. DHS later admitted he was not even the target of the investigation. In Minneapolis, agents killed Renee Good. DHS claimed she tried to run them over, but video footage proved they lied. This is the same logic that drove Arizona SB 1070, where racial profiling became the law of the land.

The Death of Michael Brown shares the same mechanism here: the pattern of state violence against marginalized populations and the subsequent eruption of community protests. In both cases, the state uses force first and writes the excuse later. In Austin, more than 100 people gathered at the scene. They banged drums and waved flags. They are not just protesting a shooting. They are protesting a security state that views a DoorDash driver as a combatant. Congressman Greg Casar told NPR that ICE has shot people and then lied about it "over and over." He is right. The record shows that the only thing that changes is the city on the map.

A city demanding the truth

Mayor Kirk Watson says Austinites have "a right to know what happened." He and local police have demanded an independent probe. They want the body camera footage. They want the truth. But the federal government does not like the truth when it involves a bullet in a worker's chest. By January 2026, ICE was holding around 73,000 individuals in custody. That is a massive machinery of detention designed to hide people from their lawyers and their families.

The Department of Justice recently charged an ICE agent with lying about a shooting in Minnesota. That is a start, but it is a drop in the bucket. The Texas Department of Public Safety has worked closely with ICE since President Trump took office last year. This partnership has turned our roads into checkpoints and our neighborhoods into hunting grounds. When the state decides some people are disposable, the law becomes a suggestion.

DHS will likely stonewall the requests for footage. They will use the same obstruction tactics they used in Minneapolis. They will claim "national security" or "ongoing investigation" to keep the public in the dark. Then, they will expedite the deportation of Wilber Rafael Garces Perez. They will send him back to Venezuela to remove the primary witness from the reach of an American court. They will treat his wound as a footnote and his presence as a crime. Justice would require the immediate release of all footage and the criminal prosecution of the agent who shot an unarmed worker. Until then, the "law and order" they brag about is just a fancy word for a gun held by a man who wasn't trained to use it.

Sources

  1. BBC: Protests as ICE agent shoots and wounds Venezuelan DoorDash driver in Texas
  2. Austin American-Statesman: Attorney: Austin man shot by ICE agent was making DoorDash delivery
  3. KWTX: Federal immigration officer shoots, injures man in Austin, report says
  4. NPR: Federal immigration agent shoots and injures man in Austin, Texas