A man was seriously injured by a bullet in the chest by an ICE agent, the American immigration police, during a foot chase in Austin, the capital of Texas, in the south of the United States, on Sunday September 20, local authorities said.
The injured man was identified by his lawyer, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, as Wilber Garcés Pérez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan national and deliveryman by profession. Mr. Garcés Pérez was shot “by ICE in Austin, while making a DoorDash delivery”a popular meal and grocery delivery service, wrote its lawyer on X. The victim would have been placed “in detention, but we don’t yet know where”she added.
“I am very angry and extremely disappointed that someone was shot on the streets of Austin by ICE”wrote the city’s Democratic mayor, Kirk Watson, on X. This incident occurred in a context of “significant increase, almost overnight”federal immigration police operations in the Texan capital, Mr. Watson later said during a press conference.
Serious but stable condition
ICE, one of the main instruments of the policy of mass arrests and expulsions of illegal immigrants carried out by the Trump administration, has not communicated on the incident. Austin city authorities were unable to specify the identity, age and nationality of the injured person, nor the precise circumstances of the shooting.
The injured man was transported to an Austin hospital in serious but stable condition, according to the municipality. The constituency MP, Greg Casar, later claimed that he had been “released from hospital and taken into ICE custody”. “If he is deported by ICE, the key witness to their shooting disappears”added the parliamentarian. “He must not be removed from this country, and he must receive appropriate medical care”he insisted.
The mayor insisted that local law enforcement be involved in the investigation. “It would not be appropriate for ICE to conduct any investigation solely on its own and to the exclusion of others”said Mr. Watson.
ICE agents, heavily armed and most often masked, are the subject of strong opposition across the country because of their methods considered aggressive, having notably caused the shooting deaths of two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in January in Minneapolis. In July, an immigration agent fatally shot a Mexican citizen in Houston, Texas.
