A Venezuelan national under a final removal order was shot by an ICE officer in Austin after fleeing a stop and faces federal assault charges, as officials push back on false narratives about the case.
Federal prosecutors charged 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garces-Perez with assaulting, resisting, interfering with, and impeding a federal officer after an ICE traffic stop and vehicle pursuit in Austin earlier this month. The Justice Department announced the charges Tuesday, and he made his initial federal court appearance the same day. A detention hearing was set for Oct. 2.
Reuters reported the complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. If convicted, Garces-Perez faces up to 20 years in federal prison. The stop and shooting occurred Sept. 20.
Officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeted the stop after running the vehicle’s license plate outside a restaurant and confirming an immigration judge had already issued a final order of removal against him. That order put him squarely in the path of routine enforcement work that ICE uses to remove illegal immigrants who have exhausted their legal options.
According to the criminal complaint detailed by Fox News, the first contact with officers was described as “pleasant and not aggressive.” Garces-Perez handed over his driver’s license. Officers told him to put the vehicle in park and step out.
Body camera footage then shows him abruptly closing his window and driving away. Prosecutors allege his driver’s side-view mirror struck one officer in the torso as he fled. He later told federal investigators he disregarded the command to exit and drove off. Officers read him his Miranda rights in Spanish; he said he understood and agreed to speak without a lawyer present.
ICE units chased him through commercial and residential areas with lights flashing and sirens on. One officer wearing a body camera lost sight of both the fleeing vehicle and his partner while calling a Texas Department of Public Safety dispatcher for help, then turned the camera off. The second officer, who was not equipped with a body camera, later called his partner and reported that Garces-Perez had tried to strike him with the vehicle. That officer fired his service weapon. The bullet struck Garces-Perez in the upper back.
Breitbart noted court documents describing the same sequence: the final removal order, the side-mirror strike, the high-speed chase, and the attempt to hit the pursuing officer that prompted the shot. The case has already drawn protests and activist claims about the man’s status that do not match the removal order on file.
Accounts diverge on whether the vehicles made contact when officers finally stopped him. The officer who fired told investigators there was no contact. Garces-Perez claimed the ICE SUV’s maneuver caused a collision and that the officer’s vehicle rammed his car to force a spinout. He also said that after he was shot, the officer opened his driver’s door, removed the keys, and told him to stay inside while an ambulance was coming.
His attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said a bullet remains lodged in his body and that he is seriously ill while held at an ICE detention facility. She has also argued the removal order followed a hearing notice sent to an old address even though an updated address was on file. ICE’s position is that any work authorization expired in 2025 and that a work permit does not itself confer lawful immigration status.
Lincoln-Goldfinch posted that the complaint shows one officer turned off a body camera during the pursuit and that her team has not seen that footage. “DHS must release the body camera footage immediately and provide full transparency to the American public,” she wrote. She added that her client now faces both the federal criminal case and a federal immigration habeas case.
Those transparency demands sit alongside a broader pattern of political pushback whenever ICE uses force. Earlier coverage of the same Austin incident already showed Democratic demands for an independent probe and street protests before the full complaint details were public.
The Department of Homeland Security has rejected claims circulating about the shooting. Just The News reported that DHS describes Garces-Perez as an illegal alien who entered under the Biden administration, carried a final order of removal entered in absentia, and held an expired work permit that never created legal status. Officials say he is receiving around-the-clock medical care, including pain medication, and that aliens in ICE custody often receive a higher standard of living than many prisons holding U.S. citizens.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said sanctuary politicians and mainstream media “have wasted no time in spreading lies about an ICE officer-involved shooting of an illegal alien in Austin, Texas.” The department added that resisting officers and evading arrest endangers officers, illegal immigrants, and the public, and that sanctuary politicians “need to stop encouraging this dangerous behavior.”
A video reported by the Austin American-Statesman has also undercut claims that Garces-Perez did not try to flee. The enforcement action itself fits the same mission that has put other high-profile immigration cases under a microscope, including the ongoing criminal investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar over alleged immigration fraud.
The core sequence is not complicated. An immigration judge had already ordered Garces-Perez removed. ICE confirmed that order with a plate check, initiated a targeted stop, and met refusal and flight. A side-view mirror struck one officer. A second officer reported an attempted vehicle strike and fired one round into the upper back. Federal charges followed for assaulting a federal officer.
What remains unresolved in the public record includes the exact moment the body camera was switched off, the full unedited footage, the officers’ names, and whether any vehicle-to-vehicle contact occurred at the final stop. The Oct. 2 detention hearing will set the next formal step in the criminal case while the immigration habeas matter continues on a parallel track.
Families across the country have already learned what happens when removal orders go unenforced and illegal immigrants remain free to drive, work, or reoffend. One recent example came when a grieving mother testified against her own party after newlyweds were killed by an illegal immigrant trucker. Austin’s case is different in its facts, but it rests on the same choice: enforce the order or explain the next preventable injury.
Garces-Perez is 28. He is a Venezuelan national. He had a final order of removal. He fled a lawful stop, struck an officer with his mirror according to the complaint, and was shot after an officer reported an attempted vehicle strike. He now faces up to two decades in federal prison if convicted, while held in ICE custody under medical care. The body-camera gap deserves a full release of the footage. The removal order and the flight do not disappear because activists prefer a different story.
When illegal immigrants under final removal orders treat ICE lights and sirens as optional, officers and bystanders pay the price first, and the courtroom reckoning comes only after the damage is done.
