AUSTIN, Texas (AP) \u2014 A Venezuelan man shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer and taken to a detention center in Texas with a bullet still lodged in his back was back in the hospital by Monday night, the man\u2019s attorney said.<\/p>\n
Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, was making a DoorDash delivery in Austin on Sunday when his car was \u201csideswiped\u201d twice by ICE officers in an unmarked truck, immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch told reporters earlier Monday. He was shot and taken to a hospital<\/a>, she said, but was released later Sunday into ICE custody with the bullet still inside him.<\/p>\n Speaking by phone during a news conference, Perez had said doctors didn\u2019t remove the bullet because it\u2019s near his spine. He said ICE pressed for him to be released quickly from the hospital so it could move him to a detention center. He said he had received no pain medication or treatment there, and had slept on the floor, before eventually being given a \u201cpill\u201d by a nurse on Monday.<\/p>\n By Monday night, Lincoln-Goldfinch said he had been taken to the hospital.<\/p>\n U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat, described this as a positive first step.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, we have to make sure he fully recovers, is reunited with his family, and gets to tell law enforcement the full story of how he was shot in the back by ICE,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Perez said earlier Monday that ICE officers didn\u2019t ask him to stop or turn on any flashing lights until after they had sideswiped him. He said he did a U-turn and was trying to park when the officers rammed his car and shot him in the back of the neck.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not doing well due to the gunshot wound, and I have not received the medical attention that I require,\u201d Perez said, speaking in Spanish over the phone as a member of his attorney’s staff translated during the news conference.<\/p>\n Perez had been detained at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) southwest of Austin, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. She said Perez told her in a prior phone call that he was being interrogated.<\/p>\n The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has released little information and has not said what prompted the shooting. In a statement early Monday, the department said it was investigating the shooting of a Venezuelan man in the U.S. illegally who \u201chad a final order of removal.\u201d<\/p>\n Homeland Security did not immediately respond to email messages seeking further comment on the shooting.<\/p>\n Perez entered the U.S. legally in 2024 after using CBP One, a program begun under President Joe Biden that set up appointments with U.S. authorities to be considered for asylum, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. President Donald Trump ended the program<\/a> on his first day in office.<\/p>\n Perez’s attorneys said he was an asylum seeker and had a valid work permit, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. She said a judge issued a deportation order for Perez after he missed a hearing in immigration court because the hearing notice was sent to a former address.<\/p>\n \u201cNot that being out of status would justify any of this at all,\u201d Lincoln-Goldfinch said of the shooting in a social media post.<\/p>\n