DoorDash driver detained with bullet in back after ICE shooting

0:00Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:Support for Here and Now Anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science.

0:12Maria Town:Learn more at mathworks.com. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. They shackled him yesterday afternoon and took him to a hospital where he was given an IV drip. He was not provided surgery. He still has the bullet in his body.

0:32Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:A man shot in the back by an immigration agent is out of the hospital and in a detention center.

0:48Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:It's Tuesday, September 22nd, and this is Here and Now, Anytime from NPR and WVUR. I'm Chris Bentley.

0:58Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:Today on the show, what's it like voting while disabled?

1:02Maria Town:And when I went to the poll worker, they looked at me and said, it's a short ballot. You can stand. You'll be fine.

1:08Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:Also, one of Juneau, Alaska's biggest industries is also some residents' biggest headache, cruise ships. The city is considering limiting the number of ships that can visit per day, but there's no simple solution that makes everyone happy.

1:23Maria Town:There is no scenario where you don't get sued in this.

1:27Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:Before we get to that story, though, a man shot by immigration agents in Texas Sunday still has a bullet in his back, according to his lawyer, and said he's not doing well at the detention center where he's being held. 28-year-old Wilbur Rafael Garces Perez says he was delivering a DoorDash order when an ICE agent shot him in the back. His attorney, Kate Lincoln Goldfinch, spoke earlier today with Indira Lakshmanan.

1:54Maria Town:I was finally able to speak to him this morning at around 8 o 'clock after no contact for almost an entire day. We had a press conference yesterday, and he happened to call his wife during the press conference, and he wanted to speak to the press. So we put him on speakerphone. And after that occurred, the guards came in and took his tablet away and told him that his communication privileges had been revoked. And so we didn't hear anything from him, but a member from Congressman Joaquin Castro's office visited him and told us that he was losing mobility in his left arm because the bullet is lodged near his spine.

2:33Maria Town:So his family and I spent the night very concerned for him. This morning, he reported to me that they shackled him yesterday afternoon and took him to a hospital where he was given an IV drip. He was not provided surgery. He still has the bullet in his body. He's got his arm in his sling, and he's back at the detention center now reporting to me that he's been placed in isolation with a regular bed as opposed to a medical bed, and he's in a lot of pain. He's just on Tylenol and ibuprofen. Are there any legal methods that you have to force him to be able to get medical attention, considering there is a bullet lodged next to his spine, which could potentially cripple him?

3:18Correct.

3:18Maria Town:Yeah, we filed a temporary restraining order, and we have a hearing before Judge Orlando Garcia next Wednesday, the 30th of September, and he has ordered that Wilbur be present at that hearing, which is good because it means he can't be deported in the meantime. But I, of course, am concerned about the retaliation that it appears that he's suffering in the treatment and detention. You have said that your client, Mr. Garces Perez, entered the country legally in 2024 using an app that was created by Customs and Border Protection that enabled him to apply for asylum. President Trump canceled all pending asylum appointments on his first day back in office, and he ended the use of that app for asylum.

4:01Maria Town:So now DHS claims that your client entered illegally. What's your response to that? I mean, that's just a lie. He did enter on, it's called CBP-1. It was a program that people applied for. You had to submit a photo and a background check and do this app. I worked with a lot of people who really struggled with the app. It was a difficult process. And he was admitted under CBP-1. He applied for asylum. He had a valid work permit. He has an active driver's license. And the reason they're reporting that he has a removal order is because the immigration court sent the notice of his hearing to a previous address.

4:36Maria Town:And so he didn't know he had a hearing and he didn't appear and received a deportation order in absentia, which is very common. I've been an immigration lawyer for 20 years, and this happens very regularly. The court sends the notices to the wrong address or not at all. So while he did technically have an order of removal, there's an explanation for it. And then, of course, it certainly doesn't warrant what happened to him. All right. Well, given that your client, as you say, entered this country legally, he has a wife with legal status. What are your next steps and how do you see his case as, you know, indicative of the larger situation going on with ICE?

5:18Maria Town:Okay, so for him, we're going to be pursuing medical care, release, ability to stay in this country, and damages. And what I'm calling for is an immediate moratorium on ICE traffic stops. ICE has demonstrated they don't know how to do these traffic stops safely, and the American public needs to tell them that we will no longer tolerate ICE agents out on the street, smashing people with their cars and shooting them in the heads or the back of the neck. That's Kate Lincoln-Goldfin. She's the lawyer for Wilbur Rafael Garces Perez, a Venezuelan man who was shot in the back, apparently by an ICE agent on Sunday in Austin, Texas.

5:53Maria Town:Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me.

6:03Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:Coming up next, there are more than 40 million eligible voters in this country with disabilities. According to research from Rutgers University, they could play a big role in deciding who controls Congress come next year, if accessibility barriers don't keep too many of them from voting. More on that after the break.

6:31Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:With just six weeks to go until the midterm elections, advocates for people with disabilities say there are still accessibility problems at the polls that keep some people from voting. That Rutgers research I mentioned estimates close to one-sixth of the electorate has a disability. And while polling sites are required to follow the Americans with Disabilities Act, people still report problems. Maria Town is the president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities. She spoke with Scott Tong.

7:02Maria Town:There can be many physical barriers at polling sites that prevent people with disabilities from voting. One can be the physical accessibility of the polling place itself. Oftentimes, places like churches serve as polling sites, and churches do not have to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. There are things that they can do to make their structure more accessible, things like putting out temporary ramps, removing barriers. But there are also issues like sometimes a polling place, the accessible voting machine, may not be working and poll workers may not have been trained to operate or fix the machine.

7:51Maria Town:Those are just two examples of many barriers. Even though these places are required to have these machines. Yes. I understand, Maria, you get around on a mobility scooter. Have you yourself had problems on Election Day going in person to the polls? I have. Well, I have cerebral palsy and currently use a mobility scooter. But previously, I've been ambulatory, but it was very, very difficult for me to stand. And I, at one point, lived in Texas. and for folks who may not be aware, people in Texas, they deal with long ballots. And so I needed to use an accessible voting machine because it was at a lower height and there was an opportunity for me to sit and vote.

8:37Maria Town:Well, that machine was not working. And when I went to the poll worker, they looked at me and said, it's a short ballot. You can stand. You'll be fine. Oh, my goodness. And then during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, I'm very high risk because of my disability, and I wanted to turn my ballot in at a ballot box. And I went with someone to my nearest ballot box, but the accessible path to the ballot box was completely blocked by a construction site that I had no way of knowing in advance. And so if I had not gone with someone else, I would not have been able to cast my ballot that day and would have had to make a completely different plan to vote on a different day.

9:17Maria Town:Yeah. Well, and let me ask about the someone else kind of voter assistance. Can a person with disabilities, say, physically go to the polls and get voter assistance there? How does that work? Yes. So people with disabilities have a right to receive assistance at the polls. You know, people could go with a friend or someone they trust and bring them into the voting booth with them, or they could see if a poll worker could help them. The primary restrictions on who can assist a person with disabilities at the polls, it can't be your employer or a union representative. We don't want any kind of coercion going on.

10:00Maria Town:But whether it's a person you trust in your personal life or someone, a poll worker, you can receive assistance at the polls. Maria, how about registering to vote in the first place? What are the challenges there? There are quite a few. So for a lot of people with disabilities, there's a group called print disabilities, and this refers to blindness, but also things like dyslexia or other cognitive disabilities that impact how people process information. Sometimes printed information is inaccessible, and there are many states that don't allow you to get an electronic ballot, which may be accessible through things like assistive technology.

10:45Maria Town:For people with my disability, cerebral palsy, oftentimes our hands shake and we cannot create consistent signatures. So when you register to vote or when you're casting a ballot, sometimes they go through what's called ballot curing and want to verify a signature. To match signatures, yeah. And that's a huge problem for people with disabilities. Yeah, yeah. Wow. What advice do you have for making a voting plan this year and beyond? Well, one, just make a plan. Look up what your options are. Determine where your polling place is. Go visit your polling place. See if it's accessible to you. See if voting by mail is an option.

11:26Maria Town:And engage other people in your plan. And this isn't really to get assistance for yourself, though it could be. It could also be about reminding other people about their right to vote and when the election is. That's Maria Town, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities. Maria, thanks very much. Thank you so much.

11:48Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:We've got to take one more short break. But when we come back, we'll hear about Juneau, Alaska's love-hate relationship with the cruise ship industry. Stick around.

12:05Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:I went to Juneau, Alaska for the first time last month. You might have heard me and Peter O'Dowd reporting on the state of some of Alaska's wildlife in our episode on Labor Day. If not, scroll back to the podcast episode from Monday, September 7th and check it out. We've got lots more from our trip to Alaska coming up on Friday. all about glacial floods, landslides, and the climate threats literally reshaping the land under Alaskans' feet. So click that follow button right now. But there's another issue that caught our eye when we were there. In fact, it's impossible to miss when you set foot in downtown Juneau.

12:43Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:The biggest thing in Alaska's capital, after the glacier and the imposing mountains, are the cruise ships. The city government in Alaska's capital has a deal limiting the number of ships that can dock in Juneau to five per day. It's voluntary, but they're considering an ordinance making it a law. Peter spoke with KTOO reporter Clarice Larson in Juneau about the city's economic balancing act.

13:07Maria Town:Residents are saying, hey, we want more. We want to codify this into law. We want actually, you know, not to have this be a voluntary agreement. And so the assembly, the local city council in Juneau is considering it. And yeah, we might see it come into play.

13:21Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:The assembly decided recently to delay that vote. You spoke with Deputy Mayor Greg Smith recently, who's against a formal limit. Let's listen.

13:31Maria Town:We are seemingly effectively negotiating and discussing and having a positive relationship with the cruise lines, which I think is a good thing. I guess I'm kind of like, don't kick the dog if it's not misbehaving.

13:50Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:Interesting. So that's the deputy mayor saying essentially if things are going well, things are going well, so let's not rock the boat. Sorry for the pun. Why do people living here want this ordinance to pass then?

14:01Maria Town:Yeah, I mean you looked outside. There's tons of cruise ships. There's tons of passengers. People are saying congestion is too much. Juno is kind of losing its Juno-esque. We're not – our town is kind of losing the specialness of it because it's drowned out by tourists and so people want to see a little bit of ease.

14:19Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:Yeah. You know, if you walk around downtown, which I've been doing recently, you see the shops and the restaurants and like there's the bike rental companies for the people who get off the tour boats, the cruise ships for these tours around town. I'm sure those businesses don't want to cap the number of potential tourists that might come spend money.

14:37Maria Town:Oh, absolutely not. I mean, their whole livelihood, a lot of our town is based off of cruise ship tourism. You know, less tourists and less cruise ships equals less money, which is not good for their businesses.

14:48Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:Does it seem like that argument they're making with the city is working? Are people listening to that?

14:53Maria Town:I think, as you said, there's a push and pull. Some of the assembly members are listening. They're saying, hey, yeah, this is people's livelihood. But at the same time, you walk downtown and some people say, I just want to get my coffee and not wait in a 30-minute line. So it really – it's a constant push and pull and it's hard to really gauge where people land.

15:13Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch:OK. You spoke with Juno's city attorney, Emily Wright. Here she is.

15:16Maria Town:There is no scenario where you don't get sued in this. So I want to make that very clear. Someone is going to sue you at any level of this.