Venezuelan asylum seeker shot by ICE says he's in detention with bullet in back

A Venezuelan asylum seeker was shot by an ICE officer during a traffic stop in Austin, Texas. Questions over his immigration status and treatment in custody have intensified calls for an independent probe.

In Short

• Perez was making a DoorDash delivery when officers stopped his car
• His lawyer says he has no criminal record and entered the US legally
• Hospital staff informed family after discharge, but ICE gave no location

A Venezuelan man who was shot by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer during a traffic stop in Austin is now being held at an ICE detention centre in Texas after he was discharged from hospital with a bullet still lodged in his back, according to a spokesperson for his attorney.

The Department of Homeland Security said it was investigating the shooting of a Venezuelan man in the US illegally who "had a final order of removal". But the man’s attorney’s spokesperson said Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, is an asylum seeker who entered the United States through a parole programme and has no criminal history.

Fabiana Melendez Ruiz, a spokesperson for immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said Perez was making a DoorDash delivery in Austin on Sunday before he was shot during the traffic stop. She said Perez called his wife at around 12.30 pm on Sunday to tell her that he had been shot, and that she has not spoken to him since.

Ruiz told The Associated Press that Perez was being held at the South Texas ICE Processing Centre in Pearsall, about 130 miles southwest of Austin. She said Lincoln-Goldfinch spoke to Perez by phone, and that he told her he was being interrogated while a bullet remained in his back.

Perez reportedly told Ruiz that when he was in the hospital, doctors didn’t remove the bullet because it's lodged near his spine. He also said he had not been given any pain medication, according to Ruiz.

"Regardless of his status, the use of force was unwarranted," Ruiz stated. "As far as we understand, he was here legally."

The Department of Homeland Security has released little information and has not said what prompted the shooting. Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis told reporters on Sunday that the shooting happened after a traffic stop and that local police were not involved. Local officials said Perez was shot once in the torso and was taken to hospital in a serious but stable condition.

Ruiz said Perez’s wife and attorney were unable to get information about his condition from the hospital on Sunday until hospital attorneys told them at around 6 pm that he had been discharged 90 minutes earlier. She said ICE did not confirm any information to Lincoln-Goldfinch, who used legal databases and other means to find out where he was being held.

The shooting came amid a rise in ICE enforcement across the United States during President Donald Trump’s second term. The agency reported more than 50,000 monthly arrests in July and August, a first for ICE. Immigration officers have also faced scrutiny after a series of shootings during the crackdown, with at least four people shot dead by federal officers during immigration enforcement operations this year.

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat, said on Sunday that he wants local police to have a role in the investigation and that it would not be appropriate for ICE to investigate the shooting on its own. At the scene, a dark blue Toyota Corolla was parked under an overpass with damage to its passenger-side door and what appeared to be bullet holes before it was towed away on Sunday evening. About 100 anti-ICE protesters gathered after the shooting.

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