Houston (AFP) – A Venezuelan man shot by an immigration agent in Texas underwent surgery Thursday to remove a bullet that had been lodged near his spine since September 20, his lawyers said. Wilber Garces, 28, was shot in the back during an operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the city of Austin while working as a delivery driver. He was ordered held in federal custody Wednesday following a hearing at which a judge denied him bail.
“He underwent surgery today and is currently in recovery,” the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), an advocacy group that is part of his legal team, said in a press release. The shooting adds to other recent incidents during Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, which Democratic lawmakers and humanitarian organizations have criticized for excessive use of force.
On Monday, prosecutors charged Garces with assaulting, resisting, obstructing and impeding a federal officer, offenses punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Garces had been in ICE custody before being transferred to a federal prison. “This is a charge that the government often uses in retaliation against people who have resisted or protested or been assaulted by ICE,” his lawyer Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch said on social media. “There’s many, many examples of this.”
Texas federal judge Dustin Howell denied Garces bail, citing a flight risk and saying video evidence showed Garces fleeing authorities and hitting an officer with his vehicle. According to testimony from the agents involved, Garces fled an initial encounter, striking one of them with his car’s side mirror. When they caught up with him, the agent identified by the initials L.G. said Garces tried to run him over, prompting him to fire.
Garces says he asked the agents to let him park his car in a safe place before surrendering, but they refused, rammed him and then a shot was fired that struck him in the back. “The HSI investigator’s testimony raises serious questions. According to that testimony, LG, the agent who fired, wore no body camera. DF, who pursued Wilber, turned his camera off partway through the encounter,” TCRP said in its statement. “The public is left without a full record of how this encounter ended in a shooting.”
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