One of the country’s largest Hispanic civil rights organizations is urging immigration authorities not to deport the Venezuelan man wounded during an ICE pursuit in Austin, saying he is a crucial witness in the investigation into the shooting.

The League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, issued the appeal Monday afternoon after an ICE agent shot Wilber Rafael Garces Perez during a traffic stop. Garces Perez remained hospitalized in serious but stable condition. The incident has prompted protests in Austin and demands from local leaders for an independent investigation.

“Wilber is a victim of the shooting and the most important witness to it. You do not deport the key witness to your own officers’ use of force,” LULAC CEO Juan Peruano said.

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, who represents Garces Perez and his wife, said her client was making a DoorDash delivery when an “unmarked black truck sideswiped him.”

According to Lincoln-Goldfinch, Garces Perez did not realize the vehicle belonged to ICE. He then made a U-turn beneath the highway, after which agents continued following him.

“The truck chased him and sideswiped him again. And the agents came out and shot him in the back of the neck and pulled him out of the car,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said.

She also alleged that Garces Perez did not receive adequate medical treatment and that the bullet remained lodged in his body for hours after the shooting.

“We learned that at 4:00 he still had a bullet lodged in his back. He was shot here in his back, and they didn’t take the bullet out, and they didn’t give him pain medication. And they transferred him to ICE, to a processing center, where he spent the night without a bed,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said. “There is absolutely zero justification for having shot him in the back of the neck. And this is why we’re calling for a stop to ICE traffic stops. ICE officers are over armed, overpaid, under trained and violent. They don’t know how to safely conduct traffic stops.”

Lincoln-Goldfinch also rejected the accounts offered by federal agents, arguing that ICE officials have not been truthful about the incident.

“We are fed up with ICE and DHS telling us lies about what has happened in these incidents where people are being murdered and shot,” she said. 

Rep. Lloyd Doggett backed Lincoln-Goldfinch’s criticism, saying federal immigration authorities have repeatedly provided false accounts.

“ICE has no credibility anymore. It lies. We know it lies. We’ve seen it demonstrated again and again, and we need the kind of independent structure to demand some accountability,” he said.

DHS sources confirmed to Fox News on Sunday that Garces Perez is a Venezuelan illegal immigrant who has a final order of removal.

The agency said Garces Perez entered the United States illegally during the Biden administration and was shot during a law enforcement operation.

“The illegal alien’s condition is stable, and he is in federal custody pending removal,” DHS said on X. 

The Washington Commanders may need a little “magic” as they await clarity on Jayden Daniels’ injured left elbow.

The star 25-year-old quarterback dislocated the elbow during Sunday night’s game against the Dallas Cowboys. It is the second consecutive season Daniels has sustained the same injury; he missed four games after dislocating his elbow last year.

X-rays on Daniels’ elbow were negative, the team revealed Monday, though Washington is still collecting information before determining the next steps for its franchise quarterback. Marcus Mariota is already expected to start the Commanders’ upcoming matchup against the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.

While the team evaluates Daniels’ condition, an encouraging update on his outlook came from an unexpected source: Los Angeles Lakers legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson.

Johnson posted on X Monday that he had spoken with Daniels, writing: “I just had a good check-in call with our @Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels! I was happy to hear that he’s in good spirits, and I’m praying for a safe and healthy recovery 🙏🏾”.

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Johnson is a minority owner of the Commanders and has built a close relationship with Daniels since Washington selected the quarterback with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.

Hearing that Daniels is in “good spirits” does not provide the definitive medical update Commanders supporters and fantasy football managers are hoping for. Still, it offers some encouragement and could suggest that Daniels has a chance to return to the field relatively soon.

Donald Trump faced a wave of criticism on Monday after the White House media restrictions appeared to backfire, leaving viewers around the world watching a South Lawn ribbon-cutting ceremony without any usable sound.

The president was marking the opening of a new granite helipad, standing alongside construction workers as he prepared to board the latest Marine One helicopter. The facility is estimated to have cost $6 million and was built after the powerful aircraft reportedly scorched the White House lawn.

With the usual television press pool—representing ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN and NBC—not covering the event, viewers were left in silence when Trump began speaking. The White House video feed showed the president, but provided no functioning audio.

The networks had announced earlier that they would suspend coverage of presidential pool events after the Trump administration blocked reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico over the weekend.

Trump-friendly network Newsmax carried the White House livestream, cutting to images of the president speaking outside the building. His remarks, however, could not be heard by viewers.

“Okay, there is no microphone because the pool cameras aren’t there,” the anchor told the audience. “So maybe this is one example of this backfiring just a little bit … the ramifications are right here—we can’t hear what the president is saying.”

The awkward broadcast quickly became a target of online ridicule, with clips of the silent ceremony circulating widely across social media.

Veteran Capitol Hill correspondent Jamie Dupree posted: “Here is what happens when you don’t have the White House TV Pool. You have video of Trump—but you can’t hear what the President is saying.”

Another user on X wrote: “He wants to be a dictator so bad he banned the press without realizing it would silence his own voice!”

The White House also unveiled its own app on Monday, promoting “real-time updates and live events streamed DIRECTLY to your phone.”

“No noise. Just the news that matters most—straight from the Trump Administration,” the White House wrote on X.

The confrontation intensified after CNN, MS NOW and Politico filed suit against the administration, saying their journalists had been refused entry at the White House gates over the weekend.

“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” attorneys for the outlets said in a 27-page complaint filed Monday.

Later that day, the country’s major television networks announced that they would halt presidential pool coverage in support of the affected news organizations.

Bryan Boughton, Fox News Washington bureau chief and the current chair of the television pool, informed subscribers by email: “This is to advise that, effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President.”

“This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place.”

The disruption comes at a particularly busy moment for Trump. The president embarked on a diplomatic whirlwind, traveling to New York for the United Nations General Assembly before returning to Washington to receive Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Xi’s visit is set to feature a lavish state welcome, but if the TV pool suspension holds, the networks may not provide pool coverage of the events. 

Trump will be waiting at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday when Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan arrive.

The next morning, the White House will hold a State Arrival Ceremony involving 479 service members, with every branch of the military represented. A B-2 Spirit and four F-22 Raptors will fly overhead before Trump and Melania host Xi for a State Dinner. 

Honor guards have spent days rehearsing on the White House grounds for a welcome designed to mirror the treatment Beijing gave Trump in May. 

Trump wanted the helipad completed before Xi’s arrival and crews raced to finish it, according to the South China Morning Post.

It is not yet clear whether the Xi events will be designated pool coverage and so fall under the boycott.

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‘I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW (who recently changed their name from MSNBC due to lack of viewership and credibility!), and Politico,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday.

He warned that ‘other Fake News Media Outlets’ could be next and has also threatened action against the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Reporters from the three outlets were turned away when they arrived for work on Saturday, with Secret Service officers confiscating their hard passes at the gates.

CNN’s Betsy Klein, who has covered the White House since 2018, was told her pass had been deactivated before an officer took it from her.

When MS NOW’s Akayla Gardner asked why hers had been disabled, the officer told her such matters were ‘above’ him. Politico’s Cheyenne Haslett was also stripped of her pass.

CNN had been due to lead the TV pool on Monday, the day of the helipad unveiling, but was struck from the schedule in White House guidance sent at 10.55pm on Sunday, according to the three outlets’ lawsuit. 

The ban immediately affected entire newsrooms. At the time, 40 CNN journalists and 22 from MS NOW held hard passes, according to the complaint. 

The suit names Trump, chief of staff Susie Wiles, communications director Steven Cheung and Secret Service director Sean Curran as defendants and asks a judge to immediately block the ban and return the passes.

The case has landed with US District Judge Timothy Kelly, whom Trump appointed in his first term. He is on familiar legal ground after ordering the White House in 2018 to restore CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s credentials after his pass was pulled following a heated clash with Trump.

Trump turned on Kelly, writing on Truth Social: ‘They have drawn a great Judge, for them, a man who ruled in favor of Jim Acosta, who now seems to have disappeared from the Planet.’

‘The Judge’s name is Tim Kelly, and he was, sadly, appointed by “TRUMP.”‘

Trump vowed to appeal, arguing that outlets which ‘only write negatively’ should not be allowed into ‘the most important Office anywhere in the World.’ 

‘It is called the Oval Office, and it should be treated with Decorum, Respect, and Dignity, not defiled by Third Rate Clowns, who purposefully distort, twist, and degrade with everything they write or publish,’ he wrote.

‘The fact is, I won all seven Swing States, the Popular Vote, the Electoral College (312 to 226), and the Counties throughout America by 86%, and yet it is reported that I get 94% bad publicity.

‘Why should I have to give “access” to such people? Perhaps Judge Kelly could explain that!’

He also renewed his demand that Politico ‘Pay back the 8 Million Dollar contribution made by the US Government to keep them afloat!’ The lawsuit calls the claim ‘categorically false and debunked.’

Trump last week told reporters in the Oval Office that no single article prompted the ban, blaming ‘cumulative stories over the last two years.’

‘You get sick of it,’ he said. ‘I don’t want them in my office. I don’t want them here. I would say the ban would go as far as you can, and if they could straighten themselves out, I’d love it.’

Vice President JD Vance defended the move on Monday. ‘It’s about basic fairness,’ he said. ‘They can still report. They still have the access to free speech. They’re just not going to get an office in the White House anymore.’

But the First Lady’s office is taking a different approach, adding to the confusion surrounding coverage of the White House. 

Melania’s office approved CNN’s request to cover her announcement at the St. Regis hotel in Manhattan on Tuesday, a source familiar with the matter told the Daily Mail.

CNN crews also covered Secretary of State Marco Rubio as he opened the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

Attorneys for Alex Murdaugh are asking a South Carolina judge to compel prosecutors to release additional forensic evidence, including unidentified male DNA recovered from beneath Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernails. The defense says the state crime lab located the DNA but never completed testing it.

In a 93-page motion filed Friday, Murdaugh’s lawyers also sought additional ballistics evidence and the raw data from a laser scan of the crime scene in Colleton County, South Carolina.

The defense accused South Carolina prosecutors of delaying the release of evidence in a way that could undermine its preparation for Murdaugh’s upcoming retrial.

“Every week the State withholds this material is a week taken from the preparation of the defense, and if the delay continues the defense may be forced to seek a continuance that Mr. Murdaugh does not want and that the Court has said it will not grant. The State should not be permitted to create, through inaction, the very delay it would then oppose,” the motion states.

Murdaugh’s defense team had previously asked that the DNA collected from beneath Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernails be sent to Othram, Inc. After Othram examined the evidence, the defense argued that more testing was necessary to develop a male DNA profile that the state crime lab had identified but did not fully pursue.

The attorneys also want additional testing of a partial DNA profile obtained from swabs taken from Maggie Murdaugh’s phone.

The defense is further seeking records of every shooting in counties surrounding the crime scene in which .300 Blackout shell casings or projectiles were recovered, as well as details about those incidents. Lawyers also requested the raw data from a 3D laser scan that the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division conducted at the scene. Prosecutors provided a read-only viewer file in 2022, but the defense says it needs the underlying data to recreate the scene.

Murdaugh’s attorneys also accused prosecutors of changing their position on the alleged murder weapon. At his 2023 trial, the state described the .300 Blackout rifle as uncommon and used that argument to point toward the Murdaugh family’s guns. Prosecutors now characterize the cartridge as one of the most popular AR cartridges in the country, according to the motion.

“The State has had continuous and exclusive custody of every item of physical evidence in this case, including the biological material that is the subject of Part III of this motion, for more than five years. It has tested what it wished to test, in the sequence it wished to test it, without notice to the defense and without the defense’s consent. It now proposes that the defense may not do the same,” Murdaugh’s lawyers argued.

Joshua Ritter, a former prosecutor and Fox News contributor, said seeking additional DNA testing could prove risky for Murdaugh’s defense, describing the request as a “big gamble.”

“I think it’s probably better left alone by the defense so that they can make that argument about this unknown male. ‘Who is that? Why didn’t the prosecution test it? Why didn’t they do anything about it?’ Maybe they’re concerned that the prosecution could point the finger right back at them and say, well, you guys didn’t test it either, you had it for as much time as we did,” he said.

Murdaugh was convicted in 2023 of killing his wife, Maggie, and their son, Paul, at the family’s Moselle property in Colleton County. The South Carolina Supreme Court later overturned the convictions after determining that former Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill improperly influenced the jury. Murdaugh’s retrial is scheduled to begin April 5, 2027.

News Media contacted the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and Attorney General Alan Wilson for comment.