A new recording was released surrounding a federal operation that ended with a migrant wounded and an immigration officer.
The footage does not answer every question about the shooting, but it provides the clearest public look yet at what happened during the pursuit immediately preceding it.
Surveillance video shows at least two federal law enforcement vehicles using flashing lights and blaring sirens while chasing a speeding car driven by 28-year-old Venezuelan migrant Wilber Rafael Garces Perez through Austin, Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the authenticity of the footage, which was recorded shortly before an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot Garces Perez on Sunday.
Garces Perez survived the shooting, was arrested, and remains in federal immigration custody while separate investigations examine the operation and the officer’s use of force.
His attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, has alleged that officers driving an unmarked vehicle attempted to force her client from the road while he was working as a DoorDash delivery driver.
Lincoln-Goldfinch said the officers chased Garces Perez, sideswiped his car, shot him in the back of the neck, and pulled him from the vehicle.
The newly released video appears to challenge at least part of that account because it shows the pursuing vehicles operating with lights and sirens rather than silently following Garces Perez without an apparent law enforcement signal.
The surveillance segment does not visibly show the federal vehicles striking his car, although its angle and duration do not establish everything that may have occurred during the complete pursuit.
Separate body-camera footage released by the Austin Police Department shows local officers assisting Garces Perez from his vehicle after responding to the shooting scene.
That recording does not show Austin officers dragging him from the car, further complicating the attorney’s description of how he was removed from the vehicle after being wounded.
The available footage does not capture every moment of the encounter or definitively establish what prompted the immigration officer to fire, leaving the central use-of-force question unresolved.
The Department of Homeland Security has said Garces Perez was unlawfully present in the United States and subject to a final removal order, while his legal representatives are fighting to prevent his deportation.
A federal judge has temporarily barred immigration officials from removing Garces Perez before a scheduled court hearing, ensuring that he remains in the country while the immediate legal dispute proceeds.
Lincoln-Goldfinch said Wednesday that her client was being held in isolation in the infirmary of an ICE detention facility with a bullet still lodged in his body.
“Our immediate demands are clear: restore Wilber’s communication privileges and take him back to the hospital,” Lincoln-Goldfinch wrote in a Facebook statement.
“He needs access to appropriate medical care,” she added.
Democratic Texas Representative Greg Casar visited Garces Perez at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall on Wednesday and said the wounded migrant required medical treatment rather than continued detention or deportation.
Casar also accused ICE of attempting to assign blame to Garces Perez without publicly releasing all of the evidence surrounding the pursuit and shooting.
“ICE has been trying to blame all of this on him without releasing any of the video footage, any of the evidence,” Casar said in a video posted after the visit.
Other Democratic lawmakers have used the shooting to renew their attacks against ICE, with critics describing the agency as “rogue” and accusing it of terrorizing communities and endangering residents.
Those accusations arrived before the newly surfaced surveillance video offered additional context about the pursuit, including evidence that federal vehicles were using lights and sirens as they chased Garces Perez, Fox News reported.
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