A Sunday shooting by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Austin, Texas, quickly drew what local news outlets described as a spontaneous street protest. But a Fox News Digital investigation found the demonstration was promoted and organized within hours by a coordinated network of socialist and communist organizations, including the Democratic Socialists of America, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
The shooting took place at about 12:56 p.m. Central Time near Anderson Square and Research Boulevard, when an ICE officer shot Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan national, during a traffic stop. Pérez was hospitalized in serious but stable condition and later placed in federal custody. Austin police said they were not involved in the shooting, which is being investigated by federal authorities with assistance from the FBI.
Within about four hours of the shooting, activists from socialist and communist groups were already at the scene, waving Mexican flags and pushing footage of the growing crowd and confrontations with police through national and Texas social media networks, according to the investigation.
Local coverage largely described the protest as an organic reaction to breaking news. KVUE reported that the demonstration “grew into a much larger crowd over the course of several hours” after starting with a handful of people. That framing, the investigation found, left out the organized political infrastructure behind the event.
A Rapid, Coordinated Response
At 4:19 p.m. local time, the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s national account, @PSLNational, posted on X: “BREAKING. MAN SHOT BY ICE AGENTS IN AUSTIN,” and called for residents to protest, declaring “ICE OUT OF AUSTIN NOW!” The group’s Austin chapter shared the same graphic on Instagram in coordination with its national headquarters and chapters in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Waco. Within roughly 24 hours, the post had drawn 5,402 likes, 2,016 reposts, and 2,391 shares.
Around 4:30 p.m., the Austin chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America posted a graphic labeled “Emergency Demonstration/Vigil,” directing supporters to gather at 8121 Research Boulevard from 5 to 8 p.m. for what it called “a spontaneous protest and vigil against yet another instance of ICE and police violence.”
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a Marxist-Leninist group that has sent delegations in support of the governments in Cuba and Venezuela, also published material describing the shooting as part of a broader pattern of “ICE violence and killings.” Its post drew 620 likes, 214 reposts, and 156 shares within 24 hours. Videos posted by the group showed demonstrators chanting, blocking the roadway, and lighting fireworks near the shooting scene.
By 5:44 p.m., @PSLNational posted a live video from the scene set to Rage Against the Machine’s “We’ve Got to Take the Power Back,” describing “Austinites flooding the streets” and quoting chants of “ICE out of our neighborhoods.” At 8:27 p.m., the account published a statement headlined “Justice for Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez,” demanding his release and the agent’s arrest, and urging supporters to “follow the example of Minneapolis earlier this year until ICE terror is defeated!” That post drew 10,600 likes, 3,616 reposts, and 2,343 shares by Monday evening.
By Monday evening, organizers had redirected activists to the Pearsall Detention Center, where they claimed the detainee was being held, posting: “WE NEED YOU BOOTS ON THE GROUND…!!!”
Broader Network Ties
The investigation notes that the Party for Socialism and Liberation works closely with nonprofits funded by Neville Roy Singham, an American-born tech entrepreneur who lives in Shanghai and has been described as communist. Those nonprofits include the People’s Forum, BreakThrough News, CodePink, and the ANSWER Coalition. Congressional lawmakers are separately investigating the Singham-linked network over allegations it has helped stoke unrest at sites including Minneapolis and the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey.
Sunday evening, BreakThrough News, a media outlet funded by Singham’s foundation, published a report headlined “Austin erupts in protest.”
The Party for Socialism and Liberation describes itself in its own program as a “revolutionary socialist” movement aiming to open “the way to communism and the end of class society,” and casts police and state institutions as tools of capitalist rule. The Freedom Road Socialist Organization states it is working to build “a new, revolutionary, communist party” and has voiced support for the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of Cuba. A co-founder of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Brian Becker, has described past delegations to Cuba and Venezuela as traveling “as comrades in solidarity,” according to the communist publication Fight Back! News.
The circumstances of the shooting remain under federal investigation. Austin officials have called for transparency and an independent review, while federal authorities say the ICE agent’s use of force is being examined.
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