Editor’s note: Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan DoorDash driver, was shot in the back by an ICE agent in North Austin on September 20, 2026. He was taken to Dell Seton Medical Center but released three hours later prior to surgery with the bullet still lodged in his body and taken into ICE custody at Pearsall Detention Center. With the bullet still in his back, he was taken 11 days later to a court hearing and now faces federal charges for assault, resisting, and impeding a federal officer. Perez’s lawyers speaks below. Arguing for his release, she told the court: “He is facing permanent immobility and sepsis and medical professionals are calling for surgery for him. Throughout the hearing today, he was wincing in pain, and it’s difficult for us to see our client in such pain.” You can watch the video here or read the trancription below.
Transcription of video by Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, attorney for Wilber Rafael Garces Perez’s defense team.
Hi, everyone. It is the middle of the day on Tuesday, September 29th, and this is your Wilber update, which is kind of a big one.
This morning at 7 AM, I had a scheduled call with Wilber, and I logged onto Zoom and did not see him. And when I called the detention center, I was told, “Sorry, your client is no longer at this facility.”
That began a scramble with the legal team to try to figure out what happened to our client. Was he in the hospital? Had he been deported? Was he sent to a third country? We didn’t know until we heard that he had been taken to the federal courthouse in Austin and charged criminally with evading, interfering, assaulting, resisting arrest of an officer.
A criminal complaint was filed. We were able to get to the courthouse and I was able to see Wilber. He was clearly very emotionally distraught and in so much pain. He was dizzy, he was lightheaded, he was wincing. He couldn’t believe that this was happening to him. Everything that has happened to him, and this is the ninth day since he’s been shot and he still has a bullet inside his body. He wasn’t able to take on or put off his translation headphones in the court hearing. He has difficulty signing papers. He’s immobile because he has a bullet in his body. And he was taken from South San Antonio at a detention center to a courthouse in Austin and charged criminally with, I will mention, very limited information.
This criminal complaint tells us that one of the officers who was involved in the shooting of Wilber had a body cam on him, but we have yet to see the footage from that body camera. We need DHS (Department of Human Services) to reveal this body camera footage so we understand what happened from start to finish.
Enough of this pieacemeal information, enough of this narrative that only gives us pieces and parts of the story. And enough of treating Wilber like his life doesn’t matter, like his pain doesn’t matter. Like whether he lives or dies doesn’t matter.
I’ve never experienced anything like I experienced today seeing my client behind a cage trying to give him comfort that there is a team of people, his legal team and a community of people behind him, supporting him, wanting him to be okay. His family is distraught. I know that the community and the organizers are so upset over what has happened.
I want to let you know what’s happening so that you can coordinate your efforts and your prayer vigils. He’s not in Pearsall [Detention Center]. He’s somewhere detained in the Austin area. I can’t tell you exactly what’s happening with his court hearing. He now has two court hearings. He has a criminal case and he has an immigration habeas case, both in federal court.
We don’t know when the hearings exactly are occurring or which one he will be brought to if they are at the same time. I will be keeping you updated, but I wanna be really clear.
This is an example of the government playing games with the life of a human being who matters very much to us and to his family. And we see it clearly for what it is. And I will be continuing to share what I’m seeing up close and personal to this case and to this client with you here on social media and I ask you to keep uplifting this story.
Thank you so much for being supporters.
Links to some stories about the politics of this case:
Reverend Erin Walter from Texas Unitarian Universal Justice Mininstry who bore witness at Perez’s hearing today.
State Sanctioned Torture: The US Government is leaving a bullet in Wilber Rafael Garces Perez’s body. This story also includes a video update from Perez’s lawyer.
