Austin: a delivery driver shot in the back by an ICE agent, the bishop denounces it

On 20 September 2026, in Austin, Texas, a 28-year-old man was shot by a federal immigration agent while making a delivery. Video filmed after the incident shows agents cutting open his shirt, revealing a bullet wound in his back. He is reported in stable condition and held in federal custody.

His status is disputed. The administration describes him as "an illegal alien" from Venezuela, entered unlawfully and under a final order of removal. His attorney holds the opposite: that he entered legally through the CBP One asylum program, carries a valid work permit, and that the removal order hangs only on a hearing notice sent to the wrong address, and so missed. City officials have called for an independent investigation.

The bishop of the Diocese of Austin, Most Rev. Daniel E. Garcia, said he was "deeply saddened and troubled." Tying his statement to the week set apart for migrants, he recalled that "whatever a person's immigration status, each is created in the image and likeness of God and possesses an inherent dignity that must always be respected and protected."

This is the very floor of doctrine, and it is older than any dispute over borders. Man is made to the image of God: "And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him." His life belongs to God alone. The Fifth Commandment forbids the shedding of innocent blood, and the Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that this prohibition binds also those who bear the sword: the magistrate's blade is given to punish the guilty according to justice, and to protect the innocent — never to strike at random, nor to keep men in fear. On the stranger, Scripture is plain: "Advenam non contristabis" — "Thou shalt not molest a stranger, nor afflict him: for yourselves also were strangers in the land of Egypt."

By this measure, two things hold, whatever the status of the man who was struck. A bullet in the back calls for justice rendered in the open, not a hurried justification; let the authorities say plainly what happened. And the dispute over the lawfulness of his stay, real as it may be, takes nothing from the dignity of the person nor from the duty not to shed innocent blood. A lost administrative file is not a capital crime.

Sources. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the Fifth Commandment; Genesis 1:27 on man created in the image of God; Exodus 22:21 and Leviticus 19:33-34 (Douay-Rheims, from the Vulgate).