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AUSTIN, Texas — A Venezuelan delivery driver who was shot and wounded by a federal immigration agent during a traffic stop in the Texas capital will stay in custody, a U.S. magistrate judge ruled Wednesday.
Judge Dustin Howell found enough evidence to keep the assault case against Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, moving forward. The charge stems from a Sept. 20 encounter in which Garces Perez drove away from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement stop; authorities say he then used his sedan as a weapon against an agent.
Garces Perez, who had been making DoorDash deliveries when the incident occurred, appeared at the hearing in a wheelchair, his left arm in a sling and a bullet still lodged in his back. His lawyers say he has been denied the medical care he urgently needs since the shooting.
Garces Perez required help putting on a headset to follow the Spanish interpretation of the proceedings. His legal team told the judge that he remains at risk of permanent injury while the bullet sits near his spine.
Outside the courthouse, his immigration attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said the prosecution itself was an act of retaliation.
"ICE's conduct has been so egregious that physicians, nurses, medical ethicists and health advocates have come together to demand his release," she told reporters.
Body-worn camera video from one ICE officer shows agents pulling Garces Perez over on a residential street in Austin. In the footage, Garces Perez passes his driver's license through a small gap in the window and asks, in Spanish, whether he can park the car so a relative can come to pick it up.
The officer replies with repeated commands to get out of the vehicle. Garces Perez asks again if he can park first. The exchange continues until, abruptly, he drives off.
Surveillance video from a nearby business captures a short, high-speed chase through surface streets. The moment of the shooting is not on any footage shown in court.
The agent who fired the weapon had no body camera. A second officer in another vehicle had been recording during the initial stop, but that camera was switched off once the pursuit began.
Prosecutors say Garces Perez swung his car toward an ICE agent at the end of the chase, forcing the agent to fire in self-defense. He is charged with assaulting, resisting, and impeding a federal officer, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Special Agent Rick Bazan of Homeland Security Investigations signed the criminal complaint. Under questioning from the defense, Bazan admitted he never directly interviewed the agent who was allegedly nearly struck. He also could not confirm whether the driver's side mirror actually touched the officer, and he had no explanation for why that officer was not wearing a camera.
Garces Perez's own account differs sharply. He told investigators that an unmarked law enforcement SUV hit his car first, spinning him around, and that he was shot as he tried to flee.
Legal observers say the government's claim that a fleeing driver "weaponized" his vehicle is not unusual in ICE shooting cases. In several earlier incidents, body-camera footage later undermined or forced revisions of similar accusations.
A former federal prosecutor familiar with DHS use-of-force cases said the missing video creates an information vacuum.
"The officer who fired typically writes the initial report, and the investigator who signs the complaint often relies on that account without interviewing everyone involved," said the attorney, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue. "The camera is the independent witness, and here there is no camera. That leaves a probable-cause decision built on a one-sided description."
The attorney added that Wednesday's ruling should not be read as a verdict on guilt. "The bar at this stage is low. The judge only had to decide that the case is worth continuing," he said.
The shooting has become a flashpoint in Austin, a predominantly Democratic city that has repeatedly resisted aggressive federal immigration policing. Democratic officials and immigrant-rights organizations have seized on the case to argue that routine enforcement stops are turning volatile.
The incident also renews questions about the rollout of body-worn cameras across federal law enforcement. ICE has been expanding its camera program since 2023, but oversight groups and civil rights advocates have pointed out that coverage remains uneven. The absence of footage from the officer who fired — and the decision by another officer to turn off his camera mid-pursuit — will almost certainly become a central issue in pretrial litigation.
Garces Perez entered the United States in 2024 through CBP One, the appointment system introduced under the Biden administration that allowed migrants at the southern border to schedule appointments with U.S. authorities to request asylum. Customs and Border Protection reported processing well over a million such appointments before the program was terminated.
Trump ended CBP One on his first day back in office in January 2025, part of a broad enforcement campaign that has expanded ICE operations nationwide.
Garces Perez had received work authorization and was lawfully employed as a delivery driver at the time of the stop. According to Lincoln-Goldfinch, an immigration judge later issued a deportation order against him after a hearing notice was mailed to an old address and he failed to appear.
Judge Howell said Garces Perez presented a significant flight risk. A removal order is already pending against him, and his child lives in Venezuela. That combination, the judge said, made release unrealistic.
His attorneys did not dispute the removal order but argued that his medical condition should outweigh flight concerns. They have asked for him to receive treatment outside jail facilities and have filed a separate civil lawsuit to block his transfer out of the country while the criminal case is pending.
If Garces Perez is ultimately convicted, the consequences would extend well beyond a prison sentence. Under federal immigration law, an aggravated felony conviction — which can include a violent assault — would nearly eliminate any chance he could remain in the United States lawfully after completing his sentence.
His defense team has signaled it will continue pushing for the full release of all recordings, including footage from the camera that was shut off, and for an independent review of the agents' conduct.
Garces Perez will remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service as the assault case proceeds. No date has been set for the next court appearance.
ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to emailed requests for comment as of this Oct. 1 report.
The case has become a new rallying point in the national debate over immigration enforcement — proof, for critics, that the administration's hardline tactics are producing avoidable tragedies. For now, the questions raised in a downtown Austin courtroom remain unresolved: why the camera was dark, why the shot was fired, and why a man with a bullet in his back is still waiting for the system to decide his fate.
