Rizky Amelia
A Venezuelan man who was shot in the back by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during a traffic stop in Austin, Texas, has been charged in federal court with assaulting a federal officer, according to a criminal complaint that puts the government's version of the encounter at direct odds with his own.
Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, an asylum seeker from Venezuela, appeared before a federal judge in Austin on Tuesday, two weeks after the September 20 shooting left him wounded in his car while he was working as a DoorDash food delivery driver. He is charged with assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
The clash began near a shopping centre in the Texas capital, and the prosecution's account of how it unfolded is set out in a federal complaint filed on Monday. According to that document, immigration officers first noticed that Garces Perez's vehicle had its emergency lights flashing and ran a database check on the registration. The search showed the car was registered to him and that he was the subject of a final order of removal from the United States.
When the officers approached, Garces Perez handed over his driver's licence through a partially opened window but did not exit the vehicle, the complaint says. He asked the officers to hold off until his wife could arrive to collect the car. Court documents describe the exchange up to that point as "pleasant and not aggressive."
Roughly a minute later, the tone changed. The complaint alleges that Garces Perez "abruptly" shut his window and drove away, striking one of the officers in the torso with the driver's-side mirror of his car. The officer gave chase in his own vehicle and caught up with him shortly afterwards. In the complaint, the officer says Garces Perez then attempted to drive into him, which is the stated reason the officer opened fire.
The evidentiary picture is incomplete and largely one-sided. No publicly available video shows the moments described in the complaint, including the shooting itself, though footage of the aftermath — in which the wounded man sits injured behind the wheel — has circulated online. The prosecution's case rests in part on unreleased body-camera footage from one of the two ICE officers who stopped him. The affidavit notes that the second officer was not wearing a body camera; that officer says he was hit by the side mirror and that he subsequently shot Garces Perez.
Garces Perez has told investigators something quite different about the seconds before he was hit. According to the affidavit containing his account, a law enforcement sports utility vehicle struck his car after a brief chase, causing the vehicle to spin around. He said the officer then opened fire, shooting him in the back. Lawyers for the defence have previously noted that the bullet remains lodged in his body.
He has been detained in a facility in south Texas since the shooting. On Sunday, his attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said the bullet was still in place and that he had a fractured clavicle. In a social media post, she explained that supporters were concerned he could develop sepsis or suffer lasting harm if he did not have surgery soon.
The Department of Homeland Security has countered that Garces Perez is receiving adequate medical care. That disagreement over treatment sits alongside a separate, and more consequential, fight over his status in the country: his legal team is seeking to block his removal from the United States.
Garces Perez entered the US in 2024 through CBP One, an online portal that the Biden administration expanded to allow asylum seekers to schedule appointments with immigration authorities at the US-Mexico border. President Donald Trump terminated the programme on his first day back in office, accusing the app of helping to cause an immigration crisis. His administration has since reintroduced the system as "CBP Home," a portal framed as a route to self-deportation.
Lincoln-Goldfinch has said Garces Perez was lawfully pursuing asylum in the US and held a valid work permit. She has asserted that he was ordered to be deported only after failing to appear at an immigration court hearing, and that the notice of that hearing had been mailed to an old address — a claim that, if correct, would raise questions about due process in a case now carrying a potential 20-year sentence on the criminal side.
He is scheduled to return before a federal immigration judge on Wednesday for a separate proceeding on whether he is permitted to remain in the country. The two tracks — the criminal prosecution in federal court and the removal case in immigration court — will now proceed largely in parallel, with the outcome of one likely to shape the other.
The case arrives amid a broad intensification of immigration enforcement during Trump's second term. ICE has reported more than 50,000 arrests in both July and August, and the shooting drew demonstrations in Texas in the days after it happened, with further coverage focusing on the wounded man's detention.
The central unresolved question is what happened in the moments between a cordial roadside exchange and gunfire, and whether it can be established from evidence the public has not yet seen. Prosecutors have a signed complaint, an affidavit from an officer without body camera, and unreleased video that has not been made public. The defence has a client's account of being rammed and shot from behind, a bullet still in his shoulder, and a lawyer warning of untreated injury.
For now, Garces Perez is charged, detained, and facing both deportation proceedings and a felony that carries a two-decade maximum, while the video that could settle the dispute remains under seal.
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