Once again, a civilian has been shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, prompting immediate protests in the community, and, once again, the Department of Homeland Security is running damage control by emphasizing that the victim is an “illegal alien” who “illegally entered our country under the Biden administration.” It’s some of the most rinse-and-repeat news we have seen since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term and his unhinged mass deportation agenda.
According to the Associated Press, an ICE officer shot and wounded a man Sunday afternoon in Austin, Texas. The shooting victim, identified by his lawyers as 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, is in serious but stable condition at a hospital after being shot once in the torso on the city’s north side, according to the Austin Police Department.
DHS also relayed the same information about Perez’s current state, while announcing the investigation into his shooting, and, again, being sure to emphasize in that announcement that he’s undocumented by referring to him only as an “illegal alien,” and mentioning that he came in under the watch of President Joe Biden — because that’s an appropriate way to announce the investigation into a victim’s shooting, according to this administration.
“Homeland Security Investigations, with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is leading the investigation into the officer-involved shooting of an illegal alien from Venezuela, who illegally entered our country under the Biden administration and had a final order of removal, during a law enforcement operation today in Austin, TX,” DHS’s statement claims. “The illegal alien’s condition is stable, and he is in federal custody pending removal. This is a developing situation, and we will update the public when more information becomes available.”
Notably, DHS’s statement doesn’t bother addressing the circumstances of the shooting itself. Go figure.
Of course, all the “illegal” propaganda in the world didn’t stop the public outrage from immediately manifesting as protesters on the scene.
The victim’s attorney, Kate Lincoln Goldfinch, said via social media that she believed he had no criminal history and, disputing DHS’s statement, that no final order of removal from the U.S. had been issued, but she later told AP that she did not know his current immigration status.
She also reported that her client’s family has struggled to get any information from the hospital about his status or location.
“We’ve not heard from ICE. No one has updated [his wife] about his care or how he is doing, and she has not spoken to him yet. So, we will be pursuing justice,” her office said in a statement to ABC News.
Perez was delivering for DoorDash at the time of the encounter with ICE, both his attorneys and DoorDash confirmed, according to ABC.
It’s worth noting that this shooting comes on the heels of the fatal shooting of Mexican migrant Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an immigration agent in Houston, which occurred in July, and has resulted in zero arrests or any accountability for the agent who shot him. It’s a wonder why Texas is where an ICE agent who was charged for the shooting of Venezuelan immigrant Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis sought refuge and walked free after Gov. Greg Abbott refused to extradite him.
It’s also worth noting that just last week, we reported that in Alamo, Texas, ICE agents violently attacked two teenagers who were not only U.S. citizens, but were reportedly on their way to file enlistment papers to join the U.S. Marine Corps.
And then, of course, there are the extrajudicial executions of Renee Nicole Good, Alex Pretti, Keith Porter Jr., and Johan Sebastián, a Colombian man, who was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Maine not even a full week after Salgado Araujo’s killing.
Not to mention the non-fatal Chicago shooting of Marimar Martinez, who was charged with attacking the ICE agent who shot her, only for those charges to be dropped after it became clear that wasn’t what happened, which is the same thing that happened in the case of Sosa-Celis.
As for the shooting of Perez, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said in a statement he is “very angry and extremely disappointed that a person was shot on the streets of Austin by ICE.”
“While I’m angry and disappointed, I’m not surprised. This has happened in other cities. With the rogue nature of ICE and the chaos we’re seeing fomented by ICE, there’s no reason to be surprised. Austinites have a right to know what happened and they have a right to feel safe in their community,” he wrote on X.
Yeah — people are angry and exhausted with these incidents, but most of us aren’t surprised they keep happening as federal immigration agents continue to run wild and unchecked under this administration.
SEE ALSO:
ICE Agents Violently Attack Teens On Their Way To Enlist As Marines
Lawsuit Filed Against ICE In Maryland Over Warrantless Arrests [Op-Ed]
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