JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A Venezuelan man who was shot by an ICE agent in Austin, Texas, Sunday remains in a South Texas ICE detention center with a bullet lodged in his back. That's according to his attorney. The man's name is Wilber Rafael Garces Perez. His shooting and what his attorney calls a lack of medical care after he was shot has sparked protests. Some Texas elected officials are demanding answers. Mose Buchele has been covering the story for member station KUT in Austin. Hi there.
MOSE BUCHELE, BYLINE: Hi there.
SUMMERS: What do we know about this man's condition?
BUCHELE: So according to his attorney, he's in bad shape. He's in a lot of pain. After he was shot on Sunday, he was taken to hospital here in Austin, but ICE agents quickly took him from there to the Pearsall detention center in South Texas. He was able to speak by speakerphone from detention at a press conference on Monday yesterday, and he says he asked for medical care.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
WILBER RAFAEL GARCES PEREZ: (Speaking Spanish).
BUCHELE: What he said basically is that he wasn't really helped when he got into detention. He was cold, asked for water. He said he was in great pain, but he spent hours even before he got an ibuprofen. After that press conference, his lawyer, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, says ICE took away the tablet that he used to speak with reporters, and she says that even she was not able to hear from him again until today. She says that at that point, she learned that he was taken to a hospital in San Antonio last night for about five hours, where he was given morphine and then returned to the ICE facility.
SUMMERS: Any more details about what led to him being shot?
BUCHELE: Yeah, Garces Perez says that he was driving for DoorDash in north Austin when he was sideswiped by a black SUV. Says it never activated its lights or siren. He didn't understand at first that it was law enforcement. He says when he did, he tried to pull over, and he was rammed by the car and then shot by an ICE agent while he was still in the car. And I reached out to DHS Tuesday, today, about what happened, including whether there's body camera footage, whether it will be available and whether he was even actually the target of this ICE operation. I asked a bunch of questions, but I've not heard back yet. On Sunday, though, the Department of Homeland Security did say that it will be leading the inquiry into what happened.
SUMMERS: Now, the Department of Homeland Security says ICE determined Garces Perez has deportation orders against him. How is his lawyer responding to that?
BUCHELE: Lincoln-Goldfinch, his lawyer, says that he entered the country legally. He used the CPB One app that was active during the Biden administration. She says he had an asylum claim, he has authorization to work. But what she says is that a notice for him to appear in immigration court was sent to the wrong address. So when he did not make that court date, this deportation order went out.
KATE LINCOLN-GOLDFINCH: I mean, just imagine. The immigration court system is 3 million cases, and they get it wrong all the time. Frankly, it's a very sloppy court system. It always has been, and it's worse now than it ever was before.
BUCHELE: You know, according to accounts, he's been living a pretty quiet life here in Austin with his wife, who's also from Venezuela, up until this Sunday.
SUMMERS: Mose, this is the second ICE-related shooting in Texas in three months. How are people reacting there?
BUCHELE: A lot of people here are extremely upset. ICE enforcement has increased in Texas over this last year. Just in July, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican immigrant, was shot and killed by ICE agents during a traffic stop in Houston. Here in Austin, for the last three days I've been talking to people who tell us that they feel terrorized by ICE. Since this shooting, there have been nights of protests the last two nights. We've heard local and congressional Democratic elected leaders demanding an inquiry. So far, though, the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has not made any public comment on this.
SUMMERS: Mose Buchele from member station KUT in Austin, thank you.
BUCHELE: Thank you.
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