# ICE Shooting of Wilber Garces Perez (September 20, 2026) On **Sunday, September 20, 2026**, an [[ICE]] officer shot **Wilber Rafael Garces Perez**, a 28-year-old Venezuelan national working as a food delivery driver, during a traffic stop in **north Austin, Texas**. Garces Perez survived. The bullet lodged in his back near the spine and was still there more than a day later. The case is the clearest test yet of two promises the agency made while doubling its workforce: that its officers would be vetted, and that they would be filmed. ## The stop Officers stopped Garces Perez after a brief vehicle pursuit. According to officials, the agents had run his plates through a commercial database and a federal immigration file that flagged the registered owner as subject to an outstanding removal order. Garces Perez has said he was trying to pull over when he was shot. He was taken to a hospital, then **discharged into ICE custody with the bullet still in his body**, and held overnight. After public outcry he was returned to the hospital on **Monday, September 21**; specialists concluded surgery was needed to remove the round. ## Immigration status — a disputed record The government said Garces Perez was in the country illegally under an outstanding deportation order. The fuller sequence reported by the *Texas Tribune* is that he **entered legally in 2024 through the CBP One app and applied for asylum**, then **missed an immigration court hearing because the notice was sent to the wrong address**, which produced the removal order in absentia. > [!warning] Unresolved — work-permit status > His lawyer says he held a valid work permit; the *Texas Tribune* reports his employment authorization had **expired in December**. This page carries both accounts rather than choosing between them. ## The body camera that was issued and not worn The officer who fired **was issued a body camera and was not wearing it.** A second officer at the arrest did record, but his camera did not capture the shooting itself. This lands directly against a public commitment by DHS Secretary [[Markwayne Mullin]], who said the agency would be "on track by the end of September" to equip all field officers with cameras. ICE policy releases footage in severe or fatal use-of-force cases only where doing so "is in the best interests of the agency" — a standard that makes the agency the judge of its own exposure. The same absence defined [[ICE Shooting of Ruben Martinez]]: neither federal agent wore a camera, and the shooting stayed unreported for nearly a year. ## The hiring surge behind it The officer was a recent hire who had previously served with Customs and Border Protection. He joined during the **10,000-agent expansion** Congress funded to double the ICE workforce — a surge run with **$50,000 signing bonuses** and compressed vetting, in some cases without fingerprint checks, identity verification, or an interview. By mid-September 2026 the *Washington Post* reported ICE had begun quietly firing some of those hires. The agency's response was that it "is hiring the best of the best" and that "when individuals fall short of that standard—personnel decisions are made." ## KB significance A shooting with no footage, a victim discharged into custody still carrying the bullet, and a removal order generated by a misdirected hearing notice are not three separate failures. They are one design: enforcement volume scaled faster than the accountability machinery attached to it, with each missing check — vetting, camera, notice, release of footage — left to the agency's own discretion. ## See Also - [[ICE]] · [[Department of Homeland Security]] · [[Markwayne Mullin]] · [[David Venturella]] - [[ICE Shooting of Ruben Martinez]] — the 2025 precedent, also uncaptured on camera - [[Immigration Removal Pipeline]]