An ICE agent who shot a Venezuelan DoorDash driver in Texas was a recruit and not wearing a body camera at the time, according to multiple reports.
Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, 28, was shot once on Sunday in Austin while carrying out his deliveries. The Austin Police Department, which responded to the shooting, has now released footage taken during Garcés Pérez’s arrest.
However, three officials at the Department of Homeland Security told The Atlantic that the ICE agent who shot the 28-year-old was not wearing his body camera and was hired just last year. ICE agents are required to switch on their cameras before enforcement actions take place and may only stop recording them once the incident has concluded.
The sources did not name the agent to The Atlantic, but confirmed that he has previously worked with a different federal law enforcement agency.
Officials told NBC News that the agent had been issued a body camera but that he was not wearing it.
“Before we hear anything from ICE about ‘we pulled him over’ or ‘he was fleeing’ or ‘he was aggressive,’” Garcés Pérez’s attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, wrote on X, “our response to any statements like this is: ‘We won’t believe you until you show us...show us your body cam footage, show us your dash cam footage.
“Otherwise nobody believes you.”
One of the unnamed officials told The Atlantic the shooting was preceded by ICE agents trying to pull the 28-year-old’s vehicle over, with Garcés Pérez allegedly driving away - allegedly almost striking an officer in the process. The sources said the moment was captured on a second ICE agent’s body camera.
The agents tried to detain Garcés Pérez, but the Venezuelan man began driving away once again. That was when the officer opened fire, the sources say.
During a press conference, Garcés Pérez shared his own account of the incident by phone and via a translator. He claimed that he performed a U-turn and was trying to park when officers rammed his car and shot him in the back of the neck.
Lincoln-Goldfinch said the bullet still remains in her client’s body and that he had to be transferred back to the hospital from the ICE facility, after he began to experience difficulty in lifting his arm.
The attorney also says her client lawfully entered the U.S. after being inspected by the CBP and issued a work permit. The DHS claims that this work permit expired in 2025.
Garcés Pérez’s deportation order was issued in absentia because the hearing notice was sent to the wrong address, Lincoln-Goldfinch says.
DoorDash told NBC News that it is conducting an investigation into the shooting.
This is the latest in a series of similar incidents involving ICE agents, following the fatal shooting of a Mexican man named Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE officer in Houston two months ago.
The DHS says Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle and “weaponized his vehicle” in an attempt to run over an agent.
Crackdowns on immigration have been a centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s domestic policy. Government data analyzed by The Associated Press and published by the Deportation Data Project stated that ICE made 49,571 arrests in July alone.
At the start of the year, the DHS stated that it had received 220,000 applications to join ICE and that it had 12,000 new agents operating across the country.
