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Date: September 29, 2026
Reporter: Emilly Jordan
A Venezuelan man who was shot by a federal immigration agent in Austin, Texas, on September 20 appeared in federal court Tuesday after the U.S. Justice Department charged him with assaulting, resisting, interfering with and impeding a federal officer.
Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, was charged following the encounter with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, according to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.
According to the complaint, ICE officers stopped Garces Perez and asked him to leave his vehicle. Prosecutors allege that he instead drove away, striking one of the officers in the torso with his vehicle's side mirror.
The officer who was struck was wearing a body camera, but the officer who subsequently fired the shot was not. According to the complaint, the second officer pursued Garces Perez in a vehicle and caught up with him shortly afterward.
The complaint alleges that Garces Perez then attempted to drive his vehicle into the officer, who fired his pistol and struck him. The key portion of the encounter was not captured on a publicly released video.
Publicly available footage shows Garces Perez injured inside his vehicle following the shooting, but does not show the moment the officer fired. The Justice Department's account is based in part on footage from the body camera worn by the other ICE officer and on statements gathered during the investigation.
Garces Perez has provided a different account of what happened. According to the complaint, he told a Department of Homeland Security investigator that an officer drove an SUV into his vehicle, causing it to spin, and that he was shot afterward.
The competing accounts have not been resolved in court. The complaint contains allegations against Garces Perez, and the charge does not establish his guilt.
Garces Perez's attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said in a social-media post that her client still had a bullet lodged in his body and had suffered a fractured clavicle. She and his supporters have raised concerns about his medical treatment and argued that he needs further medical attention.
The Department of Homeland Security has said Garces Perez is receiving adequate medical care.
The shooting occurred as ICE officers were carrying out immigration enforcement in Austin. The case has drawn attention because the officer who fired the weapon was not wearing a body camera, leaving the central moment of the encounter unavailable in publicly released footage.
Garces Perez also faces separate immigration proceedings. He is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge in Texas on Wednesday in a hearing concerning whether he can remain in the United States.
According to court documents reported by other outlets, Garces Perez entered the United States in 2024 through the CBP One appointment system and had been seeking asylum. His immigration attorney has said he had a valid work permit and that a removal order was issued after he missed an immigration court hearing. Those details remain part of the separate immigration proceedings.
The Justice Department has increasingly pursued criminal cases against people accused of attacking, resisting or impeding federal immigration officers during the Trump administration. A Reuters review of federal court records found in July that at least 851 people had been charged in such cases, with 31% of completed cases ending in dismissal, compared with an 8% dismissal rate for federal criminal cases overall.
Garces Perez's case now involves both the criminal allegations stemming from the September 20 encounter and his separate immigration proceedings. The circumstances surrounding the shooting remain disputed, while the federal criminal case proceeds in Texas.