Venezuelan man shot by ICE officer in Texas is charged with assault

Federal prosecutors in Austin say Wilber Rafael Garces Perez struck an ICE officer with his vehicle’s driver-side mirror after officers approached his car while he was making a DoorDash delivery near a shopping center. According to a complaint filed Monday, officers noticed Perez’s vehicle had emergency lights flashing, ran a database check that showed he had a final order of removal, and approached; Perez provided his driver’s license through a partially opened window and asked them to wait for his wife to retrieve the car. Court papers state that roughly a minute after that exchange Perez abruptly closed his window and drove away, hitting one officer in the torso with the side-view mirror. The complaint says one officer pursued Perez, caught up to him shortly afterward, and then alleges Perez tried to drive into the officer, who opened fire. There is no publicly available footage of the encounter; prosecutors rely on unreleased body-camera video from one of the two officers, while the second officer was not wearing a body camera. Perez told federal investigators a different story: he said that after a brief chase a law enforcement SUV struck his car, causing it to spin, and that an officer then shot him in the back. Videos circulating online show Perez wounded in his vehicle after the shooting. He has been held in a south Texas detention facility since the incident; his attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said the bullet remains lodged in his body and that he has a fractured clavicle. Perez entered the US in 2024 via CBP One and, his attorney says, was legally seeking asylum and held a valid work permit. Lincoln-Goldfinch has also said he missed an immigration hearing because the notice went to an old address and that his legal team is attempting to halt his removal. The shooting and subsequent charge occur amid an increase in immigration enforcement: ICE reported more than 50,000 arrests in both July and August under the current administration.