Sept. 21 (UPI) — A Venezuelan man who was shot Sunday in Austin, Texas, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers during a traffic stop has been transferred to a detention facility with a bullet still lodged in his back, a lawyer said Monday.
Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, said on the phone during a news conference that doctors did not remove the bullet because it is close to his spine, and that ICE agents were pressuring the hospital to release him into ICE custody quickly, NBC News reported.
“I am not doing well due to the gunshot wound, and I have not received the medical attention that I require,” Garces Perez said through a translator, Axios reported.
ICE agents shot Garces Perez while he was making deliveries as a DoorDash driver. He was first taken to a hospital, then transported to the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, Texas.
Federal authorities have not said what led up to the shooting. Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, an immigration lawyer who said she is representing Garces Perez’s family, said Sunday that ICE agents boxed him in his car and shot him through the rear window.
“They sent him to [an ICE facility] with a bullet in hisback without pain medication, and he slept overnight in a processing center without a bed,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said Monday.
ICE said Sunday that Garces Perez’s condition is stable and that he is in federal custody “pending removal.”
Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, said Monday on social media that ICE was going to take Garces Perez back to the hospital, although this has not been confirmed.
“He is in tremendous pain and tells us that the bullet is still inside his left side,” Casto said. “He can’t move the left side of his body.”
Immigration advocates are demanding Garces Perez’s release before he can be deported, saying that he is a witness to his shooting.
“Wilber is a victim of the shooting and the most important witness to it. You do not deport the key witness to your own officer’s use of force,” said Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, at the press conference Monday.
Lincoln-Goldfinch said Garces Perez entered the county legally through CBP One, a Biden-era program, to seek asylum, CNN reported. The Trump administration ended the program, and a court changed his court date without notifying him, she said.
Source: U.S. News
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