Imagine you have one job right now: Deliver a sandwich.
It sounds simple, but for immigrants, that job has become a dystopian nightmare.
Flock cameras are tracking your every movement with that sandwich in your passenger seat. Masked goons in unmarked cars are parked nearby, waiting for their moment. You make a right turn, and BOOM—an unmarked SUV slams into you, and within seconds, they shoot you in the back. If you survive, you get dragged from the hospital, thrown on a cold cement floor, a bullet still lodged in your body, left abandoned like the sandwich you were delivering.
This is essentially what happened to Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, a 28-year-old DoorDash driver in Austin, Texas, over the weekend.
Before Wilber, Joan Sebastian Guerrero, another DoorDasher, faced almost the exact same situation, but didn’t survive the encounter, as he was shot dead in front of his three-year-old daughter by an ICE agent on July 7, 2026. ICE took Joan’s life just days after they had murdered Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a homebuilder who was also driving to work. Neither Joan nor Lorenzo were ICE’s intended targets.
Before Wilber, there were at least three other people who were shot by ICE and held in detention with the bullets still lodged in their bodies. Richard L.A. and Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez are still in detention. Carlos Jimenez, a U.S. citizen, had to fight for his freedom in court with a bullet still in his shoulder.
All six of these men shot by ICE have one thing in common: They were shot while in their vehicles, leading me to the conclusion that immigrants are most unsafe while driving their cars.
What we’re seeing is ICE scouting men while they are driving on their way to work early in the morning. The West L.A. Rapid Response Network recently posted a great explainer on ICE’s surveillance tactics to target and arrest men in the early mornings as they drive to work.
But the most at risk are the DoorDashers and delivery drivers who drive all day for work. In San Diego, autonomous community patroller and ICE’s biggest nightmare, Arturo Gonzalez, has documented at least eight people being kidnapped within the last 30 days while delivering food.
Recently, an anti-AI police surveillance group called Pasadena Privacy posted on their social media about the strong correlation between ICE abductions and areas with a concentration of Flock cameras. You could try to avoid areas with Flock cameras, but ICE may already be surveilling your home, tracking your movements, and waiting for the right moment to pounce.
Being on the road is the new nightmare for immigrants—driving to work, or even worse, driving for work, where delivering food can cost you your life.
Remember to stay safe and stay vigilant.
We reached out to DoorDash for comment, but they haven’t replied.
ICE WATCH
Over the last few weeks, ICE agents have continued to show up at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Application Support Centers; even today, as we write this newsletter, they were seen in the Inland Empire in Pomona and in Los Angeles. These are targeted operations, aimed at specific people who have a biometric appointment to provide fingerprints, photographs, and signatures. ICE and ERO themselves have access to these applications, as USCIS is a federal agency.
Several of the Los Angeles locations they have been scouting include Gardena at 5715 Crenshaw Boulevard, Bellflower at 17610 Bellflower Boulevard, Los Angeles at 3747 S. La Brea Avenue, and City of Industry at 17843 Colima Road. The Gardena location has had at least five people taken this month, according to community watch teams and volunteers who patrol the area.
L.A. TACO spoke with the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), which suggests individuals consult lawyers before filing any applications with USCIS. It’s important to make sure you’re absolutely eligible, with no known negatives that could lead to precarious situations. One example is a past removal order.
“If the person has a prior removal order, and is eligible and filing again, [make] sure that they consulted with an attorney to make sure that they can move forward with their applications and that they . . . assess the risks of going to the biometric appointment,” says ImmDef.
If you’ve already started the application process and are worried, ImmDef suggests contacting a lawyer to assess whether you should continue or withdraw the application. Missing the biometric appointment altogether can lead to an application denial and, in some cases, that denial can lead to removal proceedings.
ICE agents were also seen at airports; at least one person was taken last week from Long Beach Airport at 4100 Donald Douglas Drive, and they were also seen at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana at 18601 Airport Way.
While these areas have been hotspots, targeted operations and raids continue throughout Southern California.
ICYMI ON L.A. TACO:
- Update: Judge Pauses ICE’s Warrantless Arrests in 7 Counties
- Update: New deaths added to the L.A. TACO ICE death tracker
- ICE Raid Hotspot Home Depot Removed as Sponsor of L.A.’s Official Mexican Independence Day Celebration
- The City of L.A. Leads in One Thing: ICE Kidnappings
IN OTHER ICE-RELATED NEWS
- Associated Press Exclusive: ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders
- Federal immigration agent shoots and injures man in Austin, Texas
- Costa Rica ICE Custody Death: Marchena Dies After 8 Months Held
- Biden-Appointed Judges Join Trump Nominee to Back CBP Phone Searches
- Appeals court rejects Trump's third-country deportation policy
- Parents are Giving Up Green Card Fights to Get Their Kids Out of Immigrant Jail
- USCIS Issues Guidance on Making Public Charge Inadmissibility Determination
- ICE officer called El Paso 911 dispatch during unrest, audio reveals
- Trump administration to welcome up to 17,500 more White South Africans as refugees
