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Venezuelan Immigrant Shot by ICE Charged With Assaulting Officer

12 sources · updated 2026-10-01
Left 33% Center 0% Right 67%
1 left · 0 center · 2 right

What happened

On September 20 in Austin, Texas, ICE officers stopped Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan national making a DoorDash delivery, after identifying him as the subject of a final order of removal issued after he missed an immigration-court hearing. After an initially conversational encounter in which he provided his driver’s license but did not exit the car, he drove away; prosecutors say his side-view mirror struck an officer in the torso, a chase followed, and an officer who was not wearing a body camera shot him in the upper back. Federal prosecutors later charged him with one count of assaulting, resisting, interfering with and impeding a federal officer, alleging he tried to strike an officer with his car during the pursuit — a charge carrying up to 20 years if convicted. Still images from a second officer’s body camera of the initial stop have been released, but that camera did not capture the shooting and full video has not been made public. Garces Perez, who entered the United States in 2024 through the CBP One asylum-appointment program and remains in custody with a bullet lodged near his spine, told investigators an ICE SUV struck and spun his car before an agent fired into the rear window.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 3 articles

3 of 3 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.

What these terms mean and how they're counted
On the record · names a source 3 of 3
On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: U.S. Attorney’s Office, U.S. Magistrate Judge, DOJ, Bill Melugin, Judge Dustin Howell and Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Rick Bazan
Primary evidence · cites a document or data 3 of 3
Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: criminal complaint, federal complaint, court hearing, body-worn camera footage
Credits another outlet 0 of 3
The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
Unnamed sources 0 of 3
The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
How it developed
When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Sep 30, 12:28 UTC by Breitbart, naming its source. First document in the first report, from Breitbart (criminal complaint).
Not counted 0
Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out

Unpacked

Right-leaning coverage skips a recent history that changes how the assault charge reads. Left-leaning coverage is more complete on that point and reports that people shot by immigration officers have been charged with assault before, then had those charges dropped. A Minneapolis ICE case reported by the Guardian later produced a lying charge against the officer who said he had been assaulted. Without that history, the Austin charge stands as an ordinary criminal filing. The two sides do not use the same words for him. Daily Wire calls him an "illegal alien." The Guardian calls him a delivery driver. What evidence besides the shooting officer's own call shows that Garces Perez tried to hit him with the car in the moment before the shot?
Bottom line

Read only the right and Tuesday's filing is a clean assault case against a man ICE shot; the Guardian is the outlet that reports prosecutors have already brought that same charge after other immigration shootings and then dropped it.

The receipts — 4 facts one side's coverage lacks
  • The assault charge was filed the day before Garces Perez was set to appear in court to challenge his immigration detention, and that hearing was then canceled. contextin NBC News · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • ICE said his work authorization expired in 2025 and that a work permit does not confer lawful immigration status. official statementin Fox News · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • Garces Perez was read his Miranda rights in Spanish, said he understood them, and agreed to speak with investigators without an attorney. official statementin Fox News · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • The criminal complaint does not say whether the officer struck by the side-view mirror sustained any injuries. contextin The Guardian · absent from right-leaning coverage
The Left View
Left-leaning outlets present the charge as a punitive surprise against a wounded detainee, quoting his lawyers that “Rather than provide the life saving medical care he needs, D.H.S. and the government are playing games with his life,” and noting counsel only learned of the court appearance after the fact. They stress the incomplete visual record — the shooting officer had no camera; a partner’s camera was off or arrived afterward — and that the vehicle-assault claim rests on stills of the initial stop plus the shooter’s own report. The Guardian says the accusations “were reminiscent of previous claims” after ICE shootings in which drivers were said to have weaponized vehicles, later “undermined or walked back after the release of body-worn camera footage”; NBC and the Guardian cite Chicago and Minneapolis cases where similar assault charges were dropped and, in Minneapolis, an ICE officer was later charged with lying about being assaulted. They also portray Garces Perez as an asylum seeker with a work permit whose removal order followed a missed hearing after notice was sent to a former address, and place the case in a broader pattern of people shot by immigration officers then being charged with assault.
The Right View
Right-leaning outlets frame Garces Perez as an “illegal alien” under a final removal order who refused commands, fled, struck an officer, and then tried to ram another, prompting justified force. They stress that complaint language and body-camera stills show him “abruptly” closing the window and driving off after a “pleasant and not aggressive” exchange, that he later told investigators he understood Miranda warnings in Spanish and admitted declining to exit, and that ICE says a work permit does not confer lawful status and his work authorization had expired. Fox News and Breitbart highlight the high-speed chase through commercial and residential areas and the allegation he attempted to strike the pursuing officer with his car. They argue protesters and activists pushed “false information” about legal status and profiling, presenting the charge as confirmation that the shooting followed an assault on federal officers rather than an unprovoked attack.
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is evidentiary: the shot itself was not captured on camera, similar ICE vehicle-assault claims after shootings have been dropped or contradicted once footage emerged, and charging a man who still has a bullet near his spine looks, in that light, like post-hoc justification. The right’s strongest argument is sequential conduct documented in the complaint and initial-stop stills: a person under a final removal order refused to exit, drove off in a way that put a mirror into an officer’s torso, then led a chase — facts that can support a federal assault charge even before the disputed moment of the shooting. The central unresolved tension is whether the shooting was a necessary response to an imminent vehicle assault or an incompletely documented use of force that the subsequent charge is being used to ratify — a question the missing body-camera record of the shots themselves cannot settle.

12 sources

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