Caracas (AFP) – The family of a Venezuelan man shot by US immigration agents while delivering a DoorDash order told AFP on Wednesday that he required urgent medical attention for a bullet lodged near his spine. Wilber Rafael Garces Perez told reporters he was working on Sunday in Austin, Texas, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents rammed his vehicle and shot him in the upper back. The shooting marked the latest instance of violence by ICE agents tasked with enforcing President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. The 28-year-old Venezuelan remains in federal ICE custody.
His mother, Flor Perez, said the bullet had caused paralysis on the left side of his body and that she feared it might spread to an organ. “He is badly injured and in a lot of pain,” Perez told AFP in an interview from her home in the Venezuelan state of Lara. After her son was hospitalized twice, she said he was returned to a detention center and has so far only received painkillers. Perez lives with Garces’ son, who suffers from cerebral palsy. The child depends financially on money that his father sends from Texas for his medicine and treatments.
Homeland Security Investigations, which is a part of ICE, is leading the investigation into the shooting with the assistance of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security said. Perez demanded that the officer who shot her son be punished. “He called me on a video call, and I saw him sitting in his parked car. He told me a car came and hit him,” she said. “Then he said, ‘Mom, they shot me, they shot me.'”
Garces’ other relatives in Venezuela denounced the ICE operation’s lack of transparency. His aunt, Gladys Perez, a teacher, expressed the family’s “absolute rejection” of the excessive use of force. “The truth is, there was no reason to shoot Wilber. They say he fled. However, I don’t think that’s a valid reason. He’s not a criminal. He shouldn’t be treated as one,” she said from Yaracuy state. She said it was not clear on what grounds her nephew was being held. She said he entered the United States legally under the humanitarian parole program and had a pending asylum application. The detained man’s grandmother, Maria Flor Sequera, voiced deep concern for her grandson, adding that she is hopeful that “all this will end well.”
© 2024 AFP
