On Sunday afternoon, I was in Dallas preparing for our FaithWorks board meeting. I had just left Royal Lane Baptist Church and a screening of Jesus Was a Migrant, a film featuring our work, when I saw a notification of an ICE shooting in Austin, my hometown.
Soon I began to receive texts from friends across the country expressing their outrage and grief.
It wasn’t easy being so far away and preparing for a board meeting the moment ICE violence hits home. The shooting took place about 10 miles from where I grew up in North Austin and about 30 miles from where I now live in Dripping Springs.
Stephen Reeves
As is often the case with state violence, the facts are unclear and disputed by those involved. What is not in doubt is that once again an unarmed young Latino man was shot by ICE agents roaming the streets in an enforcement exercise funded by our tax dollars. In this case, a masked officer shot Wilber Rafael Garces Perez in the back of the neck through a car door.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario where that is justified, but people will try.
The debate is almost always the same when a person of color is shot by authorities. Mostly white and more conservative folks will look to analyze every millisecond of footage and dissect each fact searching for just how an officer could feel threatened and therefore justified in using lethal force.
For everyone else, this incident fits into a larger context of a community under imminent threat. On Sunday afternoon, there is no doubt Wilber felt exactly as the agents and this administration hoped — terrified.
Masked agents in unmarked cars roam immigrant neighborhoods to strike fear in the heart of every immigrant, no matter their legal status. They terrorize the vulnerable, making it crystal clear we don’t want their kind here in hopes they will self deport.
In places like Minneapolis this meant carefully choreographed, made for TV terror theater. But in places like Texas, where our state leadership is more than happy to assist the administration, it looks very different.
What has been going on in my beloved Austin has been called a shadow surge. There have been reports of ICE agents staking out schools and churches. In July, the state of Texas accounted for 23% of all immigration arrests nationwide and marked a 70% increase in arrests over the same time last year.
“60% to 70% of all immigrants detained nationwide have no criminal record.”
Remember: By most estimates, 60% to 70% of all immigrants detained nationwide have no criminal record.
According to his mother, Wilber left Venezuela hoping to find work that could support his family. He sent money back home to care for her and his disabled son. He arrived in the U.S. in 2024 making a legal claim for asylum and obtaining a work permit. Sometime recently he moved, and a legal notice to appear did not reach his new address. He then was issued an order of removal. He had no criminal record.
I’ve met so many Wilbers over the years through the network of pastors, churches, ministries and nonprofits supported by FaithWorks.
Wilber Rafael Garces Perez
I don’t know if Wilber passed through a partner’s shelter in Mexico, or if he received welcome and respite at our partner church in Brownsville, but so many Wilbers have. Our courageous friends have worked tirelessly to offer hospitality, safety, food and a compassionate and Christlike witness to thousands like him.
I’ve met many migrant families myself, and they largely share one of three stories: They cannot feed their family in their home country, they are under imminent threat of death from a cartel, or they are women who have suffered sexualized violence.
A remarkable number of them are carrying a child with special needs and believe the U.S. provides the best hope for care. Wilber’s son stayed home with his grandmother but benefited from the work his dad lawfully found in the US.
These are who we’ve slammed the door on. These are the ones we’re hunting down, detaining and deporting — sometimes to countries they’ve never been to, or to brutal prisons. Many of them have “come the right way,” only to realize we’ve changed the rules or are just ignoring our own laws.
“Many of them have ‘come the right way,’ only to realize we’ve changed the rules or are just ignoring our own laws.”
According to ICE, Wilber “entered the country without legal status,” but according to his attorney he came with an appointment made via the CBPOne app. Claiming asylum is a legal process and a right long recognized by this country. It is abundantly clear that for this administration the law or the truth won’t stand in the way of their mission.
Moreover, they are happy to dehumanize a man with their bullet still lodged in his back. When asked about his condition in the hospital, ICE told a reporter, “The illegal alien’s condition is stable.”
To them Wilber is not a hard-working husband, son and father chasing the American dream in hopes of making a better life for his family. He is simply an “illegal.” When seen as less than human, it’s no wonder they provided so little medical care and forced him to sleep on the floor while a bullet remains lodged next to his spine.
People often come to FaithWorks asking what they can do to push back against this inhumane, violent regime. We give them plenty of choices — start immigrant ministries in your church, come to the border to meet migrants who are stuck and those that minister to them, give to efforts to help families, get close to immigrant communities and immigrant churches in your own town, show up to protests, accompany immigrants to ICE appointments, and raise your voice in advocacy.
Some of these options are immediate while others put hope in a long slow political process. Right now though, in just a few weeks, we all have the chance to provide immediate feedback.
Vote.
“Vote against anyone who supports this state-sponsored, racialized terror.”
Go to the polls with Wilber and the millions like him in mind. Vote against anyone who supports this state-sponsored, racialized terror. Vote to send an unequivocal message that you’re not OK with this.
Even if last time you thought you were voting for a secure border and tighter immigration restrictions or believed the president when he said he would focus on criminals, it’s OK to vote now and say, “Not like this.”
Don’t let a conversation about Wilber or immigration pass without making sure all your friends, family and fellow congregants are registered and plan to vote.
Vote hoping our country will once again become a place of refuge for the persecuted.
Vote as if it is a prayer that we’ll somehow find the compassionate humanity to treat the stranger as Jesus himself.
Vote like your neighbors’ lives depend upon it, because they so clearly do.
Stephen K. Reeves serves as executive director of FaithWorks.