Immigration and the midterms Fox airs competing positions

Sep 20

Fox’s Bill Melugin reports its immigration polling, including a shrinking Republican advantage and concern among independent voters. The package airs María Elvira Salazar criticizing enforcement involving people without criminal records, Markwayne Mullin defending enforcement, and Democratic criticism after the Austin ICE shooting. It also reports Republican arguments about border security. Polling, criticism and defenses remain attributed to their sources.

An ICE officer shot and wounded DoorDash driver Wilber Rafael Garces Perez in Austin, Texas. ABC aired later-released local police body-camera footage showing him wounded in his car while ICE agents stood nearby; a law-enforcement source said the shooting officer was not wearing a body camera. Fox described the injured man as undocumented and aired renewed Democratic criticism of the shooting as part of a broader pattern of enforcement concerns. Neither brief established the circumstances leading to the shots or made a finding about their lawfulness. Fox's September 29 affiliate brief adds officers' allegation that Garces Perez fled a traffic stop and tried to hit one of them with his car, alongside his lawyers' statement that a bullet remains in his back and criticism of his treatment. The new federal charge is separately recorded. The report does not establish the allegation as fact or resolve whether the shooting was lawful. Democracy Now's September 30 follow-up identifies Garcés Pérez as a 28-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker making DoorDash deliveries when he was shot. Attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch says she saw him at the Austin courthouse on Tuesday and describes severe pain, dizziness, emotional distress and a bullet still in his body on the ninth day after the shooting. These are her observations and account, not a finding about the encounter or the adequacy of all care provided.