Report: Socialist groups coordinated anti-ICE protest in Austin

A network of socialist and communist organizations helped organize and promote an anti-ICE protest in Austin, Texas, within hours of an ICE-involved shooting of a Venezuelan man, according to a Fox News Digital investigation.

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez was shot in the torso Sept. 20 while working as a DoorDash delivery driver, as Zeale News previously reported. Perez was briefly hospitalized before being released and taken into federal custody. 

Fox News reported Sept. 21 that the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) used established local and national networks to promote the demonstration shortly after the shooting.

PSL’s national account called for residents to protest ICE. The Austin chapter of DSA also advertised an “Emergency Demonstration/Vigil,” directing supporters to gather near the shooting site that evening.

The group called it a “spontaneous protest and vigil against yet another instance of ICE and police violence.”

FRSO shared videos of demonstrators blocking the roadway near the shooting scene, chanting and holding signs, and lighting fireworks, according to the investigation. 

FRSO and its Austin chapter also promoted the demonstration. The organization identifies with Marxism-Leninism and says its political goals include building a “new, revolutionary, communist party,” according to Fox News.

PSL describes its mission being “to abolish the corrupt, rotten and anti-people capitalist economy, state and governmental system, and replace it with one dedicated to meeting the needs of the people — a socialist system.”

The circumstances surrounding the ICE shooting remain under investigation.