TEXAS, USA – A Venezuelan man shot by a United States immigration agent in Texas was transferred to a detention centre with the bullet still lodged in his body, his lawyer said on Monday.

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez (28) is in stable condition after suffering a gunshot wound to his torso during an operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, 20 September.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed the shooting, which marked the latest instance of violence by ICE agents tasked with enforcing President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Garces Perez’s attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, told a press conference her client was transferred from hospital to a detention centre in Pearsall, about 215 km southwest of Austin.

“He was shot here in his back, and they didn’t take the bullet out, and they didn’t give him pain medication, and they transferred him to ICE, to a processing centre where he spent the night without a bed,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said.

She said Garces Perez was making a DoorDash delivery when an unmarked black truck sideswiped him.

“He didn’t know it was ICE and he did a U-turn,” she said. “The truck chased him, and sideswiped him again, and the agents came out and shot him in the back of the neck and pulled him out of the car.”

Lincoln-Goldfinch said there was no justification for shooting her client. She called for a stop to ICE traffic stops, describing ICE officers as “over armed, overpaid, undertrained, and violent”.

DHS said on X that Garces Perez had “illegally entered our country under the Biden administration and had a final order of removal”.

However, Lincoln-Goldfinch maintained he was in the US “legally with a work permit”.

A makeshift shrine with flowers, candles and a sign reading “Justice 4 Wilber” was placed near the site where the shooting occurred.

Wave of immigration enforcement

Trump campaigned for president on a promise to expel millions of undocumented migrants, and has taken a series of actions since returning to the White House.

Nearly 51 000 undocumented migrants were arrested in the United States in August, according to DHS figures.

Ruben Ray Martinez (23) was shot by ICE in March 2025, in what the Texas Tribune said was the first known killing by immigration agents of an American in Trump’s second term.

In July, a Mexican man named Lorenzo Salgado died after he was shot by an ICE officer in Houston, Texas.

Two Americans, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were shot and killed by federal immigration agents in separate incidents in Minnesota during a crackdown on undocumented migrants in the northern state earlier this year.