Miguel Ángel García, a house painter and father of four from Mexico, was picked up a few weeks ago by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on a routine traffic stop, family members say, after living without documentation in the Dallas area for about 20 years.
Then on Wednesday, he was shot four times, including in the neck, while shackled in the back of a government transit van.
Mr. García has yet to be publicly named by the federal government as one of the two detainees in critical condition after a gunman opened fire at a Dallas ICE facility. Three people familiar with the investigation confirmed Friday afternoon that Mr. García was one of the injured, along with Jose Andres Bordones-Molina of Venezuela. Norlan Guzman-Fuentes of El Salvador was killed, they said.
Federal investigators said Thursday that they were not releasing the names of the victims pending notification of their families, but family members are beginning to speak up, to plead for financial help, to tell of their struggles to get information from the government and to share their shock at finding the victims of the shooting still shackled to their hospital beds.
“Seeing him handcuffed like that, it just didn’t feel right,” said Mr. García’s brother, who asked he not be identified because he is in immigration proceedings and has not yet obtained legal status. “No one ever imagines something like this could happen.”
Surveillance video, released by the Dallas Fox News affiliate, confirmed that detainees aboard the white transit van were shackled and handcuffed as they fled the van for their lives, shuffling and tumbling as federal agents pointed them to safety.
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The post Detained on Immigration Charges in Dallas, Now Fighting for His Life appeared first on New York Times.
