{"id":455137,"date":"2026-10-03T09:24:41","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T09:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/455137\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T09:24:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T09:24:41","slug":"after-ice-shooting-austin-community-organizes-protests-neighborhood-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/455137\/","title":{"rendered":"After ICE shooting, Austin community organizes protests, neighborhood resources"},"content":{"rendered":"

Real journalists wrote and edited this (not AI)\u2014independent, community-driven journalism survives because you back it.\u00a0Donate<\/a>\u00a0to sustain Prism\u2019s mission and the humans behind it.<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors in Texas charged<\/a> a Venezuelan national and father living in Austin on Tuesday with assaulting, resisting, and impeding a federal officer, after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sideswiped his car and shot him<\/a> in the back Sept. 20 without warning as he was turning around to park.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wilber Rafael Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez, 28, entered<\/a> the U.S. in 2024 with a valid work permit to seek asylum and provide for his son in Venezuela, who has mobility disabilities<\/a> that require expensive physical therapy, through a program begun under former President Joe Biden. However, President Donald Trump ended<\/a> the program on his first day in office. According to<\/a> Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez\u2019s lawyer, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, a judge issued a deportation order after he missed an immigration court hearing because the notice was sent to a former address.<\/p>\n

At his detention hearing on the criminal charges on Sept. 30, a judge ruled<\/a> that Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez will remain detained because he is a \u201cflight risk\u201d and that the government has probable cause to continue the criminal case.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez was delive<\/a>r<\/a>ing<\/a> for DoorDash in North Austin last week when ICE agents ran<\/a> his license plate and began to follow him. He then called his wife at around 12:30 p.m. to let her know he had been shot. Community member Toast Lopez, who was walking home on the same route, told Prism that he heard gunshots and ran over to see if anyone needed assistance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was when I saw them pulling [Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez] out of the car as soon as I got over here, and when I crossed the street to help, that\u2019s when an [ICE] agent pointed the gun at me,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext thing I knew, the whole community had pulled up, and we were all yelling and screaming, protesting almost immediately because, you know, this is our place. These are our people.\u201d<\/p>\n

ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"A memorial set up by community organizers for Wilber Rafael Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez at the site of his shooting by ICE agents, in North Austin, Texas, on Sept. 27, 2026. Credit: Elisabeth Jimenez<\/p>\n

Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez was taken<\/a> in an ambulance to the Dell Seton Medical Center\u2014where his wife and Lincoln-Goldfinch were not allowed to see him\u2014before being taken back into ICE custody. Court filings<\/a> from Lincoln-Goldfinch\u2019s team state that he was forced to sleep on a cement floor at an ICE temporary processing center that night and then was transported to the South Texas ICE Processing Facility in Pearsall<\/a> at 4 a.m. on Sept. 28.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After calling into a news conference from a facility-provided tablet to say that he had not received any medication and was \u201closing feeling on the left side of his body,\u201d Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez was transported to a second hospital that\u00a0 night. However, Lincoln-Goldfinch said<\/a> on X that after Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez spoke in the conference, guards at the detention center \u201cforcibly took the tablet from his hands, revoked his communication privileges, and moved him out of the infirmary into an isolated room with a flat bed that cannot be adjusted like a medical bed.\u201d The bullet remains<\/a> in his spine.<\/p>\n

Demonstrations continue<\/a> in Austin since the initial protest erupted at the site of the shooting against ICE, the Austin Police Department (APD), and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) on Sept. 20, where at least six<\/a> were arrested<\/a>. An Austin City Council candidate was arrested<\/a> after the protests on Sept. 26 while walking his dog and charged with \u201crioting\u201d; DPS cited that he was identified through \u201ca variety of records,\u201d including social media posts, phone, and government records.<\/p>\n

Organizers say they want Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez to be released and receive appropriate medical care.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"Community members started protesting as soon as Wilber Rafael Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez was shot, in Austin, Texas, on Sept. 20, 2026. Credit: Leila Saidane<\/p>\n

Texas has been steadily increasing immigration enforcement since 2021, after Gov. Greg Abbott began Operation Lone Star<\/a>, an initiative that has spent more than $11 billion on border enforcement and walls. Two years later, Texas passed one of the U.S.\u2019s most aggressive<\/a> immigration enforcement laws, allowing police to arrest and deport undocumented people who crossed the Texas-Mexico border.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the Trump administration began cracking down<\/a> on immigration and sharply increased ICE raids nationwide, average daily arrests<\/a> in Texas have more than doubled from 85 under Biden to 176 under Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vladimir Herrera, \u200aa member of Dare To Struggle Austin<\/a>, a grassroots advocacy organization against police brutality and immigration enforcement, said he noticed more community members in Austin get detained by ICE this past February and March, with the presence of federal agents being at its largest<\/a> around July.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor months we\u2019ve been set up at a pulga [flea market] at North Lamar and [West] Rundberg,\u201d Herrera said. \u201cWhen we first went, there were 30-plus vendors setting up in this space behind some businesses. This neighborhood was known to us as a hotbed for ICE activity, so we started going there to talk to people about the crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emilio Verdooren, another Dare To Struggle organizer, said that masked plainclothes<\/a> agents sit in unmarked cars at the local shopping plaza, banks, and parking lots within the North Austin neighborhood, surveilling community members and waiting to \u201cpull people over, dragnet style.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would see DPS stalking, be waiting behind bushes, in parking lots, waiting for people to pass by, and within five to 10 minutes of having stopped someone, ICE would show up and pick them up,\u201d Verdooren said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen them pick someone up and leave their car doors open with keys inside the ignition.\u201d<\/p>\n

DPS did not immediately respond to Prism\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

Other Austin nonprofits and immigrant rights coalitions, such as the Austin Sanctuary Network<\/a> and La Frontera Unida<\/a>, have also continued organizing<\/a> community discussions and small demonstrations, as well as providing resources to impacted community members.<\/p>\n

Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez was brought<\/a> to the Austin federal courthouse Wednesday in a wheelchair for his criminal hearing, where body camera footage was reviewed. In the video, an officer calls for DPS dispatch and shuts off his body camera before calling the other ICE agent, who investigators say shot Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez. The agents were referred to by the initials \u201cL.G.\u201d and \u201cD.F.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to see him disappear into the system like I\u2019ve seen many others,\u201d Lopez said, adding that he does not know the whereabouts of his cousin who was taken by ICE. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the reasons why I\u2019ve been at [the site of the shooting] every day, making sure no one forgets Wilber\u2019s name.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lincoln-Goldfinch maintains<\/a> that Garc\u00e9s P\u00e9rez\u2019s criminal charge \u201cis not an isolated case,\u201d and \u201cis often used against protesters and resisters against the government.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aWe know that ICE has a pattern of trafficking<\/a> people across this country and trafficking them outside of this country,\u201d Herrera said. \u201cMore people should be thinking about what we\u2019re seeing now as the beginning and not some climax.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editorial Team:
Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor<\/p>\n

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