A Venezuelan illegal immigrant with a deportation order faces assault charges after ICE shot him in Austin, and local leaders blasted federal officers.
Wilber Rafael Garces-Perez, 28, went before a U.S. magistrate judge in Austin and was formally notified he faces one federal count of assaulting a federal officer after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement stop on Sept. 20 ended in a pursuit and gunfire.
Court documents say ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers targeted the stop because an immigration judge had already issued a final order of removal against him. Breitbart News reported the charging details as the case moved into federal court in the Western District of Texas.
That sequence, a lawful removal order, a traffic stop, a flight from officers, and a shooting, is now the center of both a criminal case and a political fight in Austin. Activists and city leaders cast the episode as proof ICE is the problem. The complaint paints a different picture: a man under a final deportation order who refused commands, struck an officer with his vehicle, and forced a chase.
According to court documents, ICE ERO officers initiated the traffic stop on Sept. 20 after confirming the immigration judge’s final order of removal on Garces-Perez. He handed over his driver’s license. Once officers verified they had the right man, they told him to put the vehicle in park and step out.
He ignored those orders, the complaint alleges. After further direction in Spanish, he abruptly closed his window and drove off. The complaint says body camera footage shows he struck one ICE ERO officer in the torso with the driver’s side-view mirror as he fled.
U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas Justin R. Simmons said the stop was targeted because officers had that final removal order. In plain terms, this was not a random pull-over. It was an enforcement action against a man already ordered out of the country.
Federal removal orders mean little if the subjects can simply drive away. That is why Homeland Security has insisted no illegal immigrant is off limits when officers have lawful grounds to act.
ICE ERO officers pursued with emergency lights and sirens activated, the complaint states. Garces-Perez led a high-speed chase through a commercial and residential area. One officer lost sight of him. The other caught up.
At that point, the complaint alleges, Garces-Perez attempted to strike the officer with his car. The officer fired his pistol. That is the core federal allegation now before the court: assault on a federal officer, a charge that carries up to 20 years in prison if he is convicted.
The complaint also records his version. He denied that the ICE officer activated emergency lights before a collision. He said the lights came on after contact with the officer. He claimed he asked if he could pull into a parking space, then drove away. Prosecutors are not required to accept that account. A jury, if the case goes that far, will weigh the complaint, the body camera evidence, and his statements.
Separate reporting filled in what happened to Garces-Perez after the shooting. The New York Post reported that an ICE agent shot and wounded the 28-year-old Venezuelan during the Austin incident, leaving him in serious but stable condition, and that protests formed near the scene.
Reuters later reported he was treated for left-side paralysis with a bullet still lodged in his back, then returned the same day to an ICE detention facility about 130 miles southwest of Austin. Austin police bodycam, per that account, showed a single gunshot wound to his upper back after officers cut away his shirt. His lawyer claimed inadequate care and said he had slept on the floor; the Department of Homeland Security disputed those claims. The local district attorney asked DHS to pause any removal so he could serve as a witness.
During a Monday call arranged by his lawyer, Garces-Perez spoke in Spanish.
His attorney relayed the detention transfer, and Reuters reported his condition update from that call.
"I'm not doing well because of the gunshot I received."
Injury does not erase the alleged assault. Officers are allowed to defend themselves when a vehicle is used as a weapon. The criminal complaint puts that choice in front of a federal judge, not a protest crowd.
Local reaction followed a familiar script. Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said the city “deserves answers.” Mayor Kirk Watson went further.
"I'm very angry about this."
Watson added he was “not surprised at all” given “the nature of ICE and the way ICE is doing its business these days and the chaos that we see it performing and fomenting.” That framing treats the enforcement agency as the offender and soft-pedals the man who, per federal allegations, ignored commands, hit an officer with a side-view mirror, and tried to strike an officer with a car.
Protesters gathered. Activist groups pushed claims about the case. A photo caption in coverage noted San Antonio Socialists calling for ICE to leave Austin after the shooting. Some circulating claims held that Garces-Perez had legal status or had been profiled; reporting tied to the charging documents described a final order of removal and a targeted stop.
City hall anger at ICE is not the same thing as a defense on the facts. A final removal order is a legal judgment. Ignoring a lawful stop and using a car against officers is how a deportation case becomes a federal assault case. Similar flashpoints have already been covered when an ICE officer shot a Venezuelan man under a deportation order and street protests followed.
Austin is not alone in the tension. Across the country, local officials and activists treat immigration arrests as scandals and ICE officers as agitators. That posture collides with basic law-and-order expectations held by most Americans who want borders that mean something and officers who can finish a stop without being run down.
Other cities have moved the other way under pressure. In Connecticut, lawmakers and local votes have even opened doors for non-citizens in policing fights that erupted after ICE arrests swept through the area. Sanctuary habits die hard.
Line officers still need clear authority to call federal partners. Guidance has gone out reminding police they can contact immigration authorities even when local politicians prefer silence, including efforts by America First Legal to tell NYPD officers they may call ICE directly.
Political interference has costs. When governors veto cooperation bills, they signal that illegal immigrants come before the public safety of their own residents, a pattern seen when Roy Cooper’s ICE vetoes put enforcement last. Austin’s mayor reached for the same impulse: blame the agency that showed up with a removal order, not the man who drove off.
Garces-Perez faces one count of assaulting a federal officer. The possible sentence runs as high as 20 years if he is convicted. He has been notified of the charge in Austin federal court. The traffic stop rested on a confirmed final order of removal. The complaint alleges he refused to park and exit, struck an officer with the side-view mirror, led a high-speed chase, and attempted to hit an officer with the car before the officer fired.
None of that requires a press conference from city hall. It requires a fact-finder who can read the complaint, watch the body camera footage cited by prosecutors, and apply the law. Illegal immigrants with final removal orders do not get to convert a deportation stop into a street veto. Officers hit by a mirror and threatened by a vehicle do not have to absorb the blow and hope for the best.
The protests will fade. The charge will not. A country that wants secure borders has to let ICE finish the job when a judge has already ordered someone removed, and it has to back officers when a car becomes a weapon on a residential street.
Lawful removal orders are not optional, and assaulting the officers who carry them out is not protest. It is a crime.
