{"id":443680,"date":"2026-09-22T04:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T04:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/443680\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T04:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T04:22:09","slug":"austins-hispanic-community-reacts-with-fear-uncertainty-after-ice-shooting-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/443680\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin\u2019s Hispanic community reacts with fear, uncertainty after ICE shooting \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"ProtestersProtesters gather at the scene of the ICE shooting in North Austin on Sunday night. (Michael Minasi | KUT News)<\/p>\n

After an Austin resident was shot and detained by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer<\/a> on Sunday, members of the local Hispanic community say they are afraid to go out on the street. Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, a Venezuelan citizen, remains in custody in a detention center in South Texas as of Monday evening.<\/p>\n

KUT News has chosen to only use the community members\u2019 first names due to their fear of professional or legal consequences for speaking publicly.<\/p>\n

A community member named Carlos, who has a business close to where the shooting took place near Anderson Square and U.S 183 in North Austin, said he spoke to both the ICE agent and Garces Perez, who was shot in the back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told [the officer], \u2018What\u2019s happening here is un-American. The American community is respectful,’\u201d Carlos said in Spanish. \u201cThe American respects and will take care of you. And they are injecting fear and insecurity to the people, and not just Latinos but everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mar\u00eda, who works at a Central American restaurant a couple of blocks away from the incident, said the business had to close early on Sunday night because of the chaos that came after the shooting. Mar\u00eda said what happened Sunday is exactly what the immigrant and Hispanic community fears.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople\u2019s fear is that \u2026 they always use violence in the way they detain people. That\u2019s what people fear,\u201d Mar\u00eda said in Spanish. \u201cNobody wants to get back to their country in a coffin.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said that, even though she is a resident, she\u2019s also afraid because she has friends who were residents and were deported. In the last few months, she\u2019s been too scared to go out, even to walk her dogs, because of immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n

Local residents consider leaving<\/p>\n

Both Mar\u00eda and Carlos said business has been slow in the last year. Mar\u00eda said sales in the restaurant are down about 60%. She said the recent shooting will create even more fear and increase the number of people who are voluntarily leaving the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think most people are thinking seriously about leaving,\u201d Mar\u00eda said. \u201cI have a friend from Venezuela who just left, too. He self-deported. Can you imagine?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mar\u00eda said she came to the U.S. when she was 10 years old, and grew up in Austin. She said she\u2019s always wanted to live in Austin because of how calm it is, but she\u2019s now also considering leaving the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine, you can\u2019t even call the police,\u201d Mar\u00eda said. \u201cYou can\u2019t trust the police because \u2026 what if you\u2019re affected?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Austin Police Department changed its rules on how it interacts with ICE<\/a> in April, following threats from Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s office. Under the new rules, it is recommended, not mandatory, to contact a supervisor before reaching out to ICE.<\/p>\n

Concerns about ICE activity grow<\/p>\n

Reports of Garces Perez\u2019s detainment inundated social media starting Sunday afternoon. People quickly took to the streets to protest the shooting and detention of the 28 year old.<\/p>\n

Anderly, a Honduran who has a pending asylum case, said she saw the reports online, but was unsure where in the city it had happened. She said she rarely goes out these days, but on Monday morning she found herself in the area of the shooting because she had to deliver paperwork to get a passport for her child, who is a U.S. citizen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a 4-month-old baby,\u201d Anderly said. \u201cI\u2019ll go out, but I think about whether I\u2019ll return or not, if [ICE] will leave her here, if they\u2019ll take her away. You don\u2019t know if you\u2019ll return home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The anxiety also extends to her partner\u2019s safety, who doesn\u2019t have another option but to go out and work remodeling houses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI stay at home at the moment,\u201d she said in Spanish. \u201cI get home, and I\u2019m indoors, and nothing happens to me. But for him, he\u2019s out on the streets working, and that worries me more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderly said the current immigration enforcement strategy is going beyond the limits of what is reasonable, because the number of people being detained and hurt keeps going up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt used to be more calm. They would detain people and take them away, but now they are trespassing certain limits,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause shooting someone is inhumane, it really is.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, released a statement condemning ICE activity. \u201cWhile we do not yet have all of the facts about today\u2019s alarming shooting, we do have the facts about ICE, which has recently accelerated its intrusion into our community,\u201d he said. \u201cOur lack of facts results from ICE secrecy and non-responsiveness. \u2026 ICE is eager to fulfill a deportation quota by rounding up any immigrant that it can find, including those who are making a real contribution to our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Protesters and police clashed Sunday afternoon following the shooting. Protests are set to continue into their second day, Monday, with an event scheduled at the Texas Capitol for 8 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Protesters gather at the scene of the ICE shooting in North Austin on Sunday night. (Michael Minasi |…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,1829,1724,3647,6481,223,25805,27],"class_list":["post-443680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-ice","tag-immigration","tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","tag-kut","tag-news","tag-police-shootings","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}