An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot an immigrant from Venezuela in the torso in Austin, Texas, local authorities said, the latest violent episode to occur as the Trump administration pushes to increase deportations.
State, local and federal law enforcement officers were investigating the episode that took place under a highway overpass in Northwest Austin. A blue Toyota Corolla punctured by bullets was pulled to the side of the road. Yellow police tape and state trooper vehicles blocked access to the scene.
The area, home to many Latino residents, has seen a recent surge in immigration activity, Austin city officials said at a news conference on Sunday afternoon.
City officials said earlier that the man was in serious but stable condition at a hospital.
The injured man, Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, is a 28-year-old immigrant from Venezuela, said Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, an immigration lawyer who said at the hospital that she is now representing him and his family.
Ms. Lincoln-Goldfinch said that she and Mr. Garces Perez’s wife were not allowed to see him at the hospital. Later on Sunday evening, representatives from the hospital told them that Mr. Garces Perez had been released hours earlier into ICE custody. Ms. Lincoln-Goldfinch added that they did not know where he was.
Other details about what led to the shooting remained murky.
It was unclear whether the person had been the target of an immigration operation, but Lisa Davis, the Austin police chief, said that the shooting had occurred after a “small foot pursuit.” Officials with the Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not immediately return requests for comment.
“I’m very angry about this,” Mayor Kirk Watson of Austin said at the news conference. But, he added, “I’m not surprised at all. It’s happened in other cities with the nature of ICE and the way ICE is doing its business these days and the chaos that we see it performing and fomenting.”
Mr. Watson and other city officials called on federal authorities to be open and truthful about the shooting. Information initially reported by D.H.S. in other shootings has, in some cases, proven to be inaccurate.
“There is a reason that people in Austin and across the country are deeply suspicious of anything that ICE has said, and there is a reason that people are hurting right now when they hear about this having happened in their city, even before they know all the facts,” said Rep. Greg Casar, who represents the area in Congress.
The violence in Austin was the second Texas ICE shooting in recent months. President Trump has intensified his deportation effort with more targeted operations, which attract less attention, since two civilians were shot and killed during a crackdown in Minneapolis in January.
In July, an ICE agent in Houston shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in the abdomen while he was on his way to work at a construction site with three other men. Mr. Araujo, a father, a husband and business owner who had moved to the United States 35 years ago from Mexico died at a hospital.
Federal officials later said that Mr. Araujo had not been the operation’s intended target.
Less than a week after Mr. Araujo’s death, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian immigrant, was shot and killed by an ICE agent while he headed to work in Biddeford, Maine. Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor ICE has said publicly whether he was the target of an enforcement operation.
More than 20 people have been shot by federal immigration agents since Mr. Trump took office in January 2025. Six people, including three U.S. citizens, have been killed in those shootings, nearly all of which involved officers firing at people in vehicles.
Months before the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, a 23-year-old American man named Ruben Ray Martinez was shot and killed by an ICE officer in South Padre Island, Texas.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Miriam Jordan contributed reporting.
