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\nPFLUGERVILLE, TEXAS – SEPTEMBER 22: High school students protest outside of the Pflugerville Police Department on September 22, 2026 in Pflugerville, Texas. Students from several high schools across Austin are participating in walkouts and protests in response to Sunday’s shooting where a federal ICE officer shot and wounded 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, a Venezuelan national who was working as a DoorDash driver in North Austin.
\nPhoto by Brandon Bell\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
One week ago, Garces Perez was delivering food for DoorDash in North Austin. Today, the 28-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker is still inside the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, still carrying the bullet that lodged near his spine, and \u2014 according to the most recent reporting from CBS Austin<\/a> \u2014 still without a confirmed date for the surgery a specialist recommended earlier in the week.<\/p>\n Casar’s Visit, and a Monday Deadline<\/p>\n U.S. Rep. Greg Casar visited Garces Perez at the Pearsall facility on Sept. 23 and described someone in a wheelchair, his arm in a sling, with heavy bruising across his torso, according to a press release from Casar’s office<\/a>. Wound-care staff have been cleaning the injury two to three times daily since the shooting, and Garces Perez only received a stronger dose of pain medication roughly an hour before Casar arrived.<\/p>\n Casar and more than 100 House Democrats have set a Monday, Sept. 28 deadline for Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to answer a formal list of questions about the shooting and the medical response \u2014 two days before Garces Perez is due in federal court.<\/p>\n Why Doctors Aren’t Calling It Neglect \u2014 Yet<\/p>\n Not every medical expert treats the delay itself as a red flag. Dr. Amy Zeidan, an Atlanta emergency physician who studies detainee care, told KUT<\/a> that physicians “do discharge people not infrequently with ballistic injuries, including retained bullets,” since operating close to the spinal cord carries its own paralysis risk. A separate specialist who reviewed comparable cases told the Texas Tribune<\/a> that a follow-up consult, rather than immediate extraction, is a fairly standard next step for this kind of wound.<\/p>\n DHS has repeatedly pointed to that same distinction. In a statement carried by NBC News<\/a>, the agency said Garces Perez is “receiving medical care around the clock, including pain medication,” and argued ICE has no authority to direct a medical procedure \u2014 meaning, in the agency’s account, the surgery timeline isn’t its decision to make.<\/p>\n A Deportation Already Blocked, a Bigger Hearing Still Ahead<\/p>\n What hasn’t made it into every version of this story is that Garces Perez’s removal is currently on hold. On Sept. 23, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia granted an emergency order stopping any deportation while a federal lawsuit and habeas corpus petition filed by attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch proceed, according to CBS News<\/a>. The order requires Garces Perez to appear in person in San Antonio on Sept. 30 \u2014 a hearing his legal team calls critical, since he’s also the central witness to his own shooting.<\/p>\n Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza separately sent DHS and ICE leadership a letter asking that removal proceedings be paused while the shooting itself remains under investigation, arguing his testimony would likely be needed if criminal charges follow.<\/p>\n Two Videos, One Unresolved Timeline<\/p>\n The bigger open question is what happened in the minutes before the shooting. Garces Perez’s own account, relayed through his attorney, is that he asked to pull over and be detained but was refused and then struck by an ICE vehicle. Austin’s police chief has since released dash and cellphone video from an off-duty detective showing something more layered: his car already stopped, with an agent at the window, minutes before a pursuit resumed toward the intersection where he was shot.<\/p>\n Neither DHS nor ICE has released its own footage, and the officer who fired wasn’t wearing a body camera \u2014 he’d been issued one but wasn’t using it that day, according to reporting cited by multiple outlets, including the Texas Tribune’s account of the missing bodycam footage<\/a>.<\/p>\n New Allegations From Behind Bars<\/p>\n Garces Perez’s attorney has also alleged that detention staff confiscated his tablet and cut off his ability to communicate after he spoke to reporters by phone on Sept. 21, moving him into an isolated room, according to the Austin American-Statesman<\/a>. Those specific claims haven’t been independently verified.<\/p>\n Protests tied to the case have continued into the weekend: an Austin City Council candidate was arrested Sept. 26 on a riot charge connected to the original demonstration, and organizers held rallies in San Antonio and planned another day of action at the shooting site<\/a> for Sept. 27.<\/p>\n Houston’s Parallel Reckoning<\/p>\n None of this is unfolding in isolation for Texas’s Latino communities. Houston is still processing the July 7 killing of 52-year-old construction worker Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE agent on Canal Street. FIEL Houston executive director Cesar Espinosa has said fear runs deep enough that some residents are skipping basic errands like grocery shopping<\/a>.<\/p>\n That backdrop is colliding with city politics. Houston’s council has twice pulled a nearly $150 million Justice Department grant application off its agenda rather than accept funding tied to immigration-enforcement alignment, according to ABC13<\/a>. It’s the same standoff that split the council in April, when Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to claw back more than $110 million<\/a> in state funding over a local ordinance limiting ICE detainer holds.<\/p>\n The Economic Toll Along I-35<\/p>\n The strain is measurable on both ends of the highway. Shop owners near the Austin shooting site report sales down by roughly 60%, while street arrests by immigration agents in Houston have climbed more than fourfold over the past year, according to LatinTimes<\/a>. The shooting is also at least the third involving federal immigration agents in Texas since the start of this administration, part of a pattern CNN has tracked nationally<\/a>.<\/p>\n What Comes Next<\/p>\n Whether Monday’s DHS briefing arrives on schedule, and whether the Sept. 30 hearing produces a surgery date, a release, or neither, remains the open question heading into next week. For now, Garces Perez stays in federal custody in Pearsall, his deportation blocked but his medical timeline still unresolved.<\/p>\n \u00a9 {{Year}} Latin Times. All rights reserved. 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