Wilber Rafael Garces Perez had surgery Oct. 1 to remove a bullet lodged in his upper back, 11 days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot him in North Austin, his attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch said. The surgery renewed questions about why Dell Seton Medical Center released Garces Perez into ICE custody roughly four hours after he arrived at the hospital on Sept. 20, with the bullet still in his body. At a Sept. 21 news conference, Garces Perez said doctors had not removed it because it was too close to his spine. In an Oct. 5 letter, Austin-area Catholic advocates and Jim Harrington, founder of the Texas Civil Rights Project, asked Dell Seton and its parent company, Ascension Seton, to explain the decision. They questioned why, if the hospital could not continue treating him, he was not transferred to another medical facility instead of being taken to the Pearsall detention center, which is not a medical facility. The letter’s signers said Ascension Seton’s earlier statement that staff had strictly followed established policies was troubling. They called for the health system to explain what rules govern the care, discharge and transfer of patients in ICE custody or at risk of being taken into custody. The questions come as Garces Perez faces a federal charge stemming from the events that led to the shooting. At a Sept. 30 hearing in Austin, the Department of Homeland Security alleged that he struck an ICE agent with his car’s side mirror and tried to hit the agent again before fleeing. Garces Perez has not been convicted of those allegations. A DHS agent testified that the government showed the court footage from an ICE agent’s body camera. The video has not been made public, and the agent who shot Garces Perez was not wearing a body camera, the witness said. According to the testimony, two ICE agents had stopped Garces Perez after checking his license plate. He drove away, leading to a pursuit in which both the agents and Garces Perez ran stop signs and traffic lights. The body-camera footage showed one agent driving at high speed and laughing during the pursuit, according to the account presented in court. The investigating agent testified that one officer later called his partner, who said he had shot Garces Perez after the driver tried to hit him with the vehicle. The Austin Police Department said Sept. 30 that it had requested evidence from Homeland Security Investigations but had not yet received it, and that its investigation remained active. U.S. Magistrate Judge Dustin Howell denied Garces Perez bond at the hearing and returned him to federal criminal custody, citing flight risk, including that he had fled from agents and that most of his family lives in Venezuela. On Sept. 30, an ICE memo ordered agents not to conduct vehicle pursuits under any circumstances. Lincoln-Goldfinch welcomed the directive, saying the agency should have adopted it sooner.