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Friends and family of Wilber Garces Perez, the man shot by an ICE officer in Austin, say he’s spent his time focused on family, work and soccer since coming to the United States from Venezuela in 2024. We’ve got more from the people who know him best.
The agency building Austin’s light-rail system is scrapping a controversial plan to relocate to a high-rise overlooking Lady Bird Lake. How taxpayer dollars are being spent as efforts to build a 10-mile light-rail system ramp up.
An owlet that was saved from an abandoned nest at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center has been released back to the wild. How the owl beat the odds.
Paprika was the only Austin restaurant featured on a prestigious list of the best eats in the country. We’ll chat with the owner and chef leading the outfit.
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:08] Friends and family of Wilbur Garcespedes, the man shot by an ICE officer in Austin, say he spent his time focused on family, work, and soccer. We’ve got more from the people who know him best, and the agency building Austin’s light rail system is scrapping a controversial plan to relocate to a high-rise, overlooking Lady Bird Lake. How taxpayer dollars are being spent as efforts to build a 10-mile light rail system ramps up. Plus, an owlet that was saved from an abandoned nest at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center has been released to the wild. How that owl beat the odds, coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:40] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:46] Paprico was the only Austin restaurant featured on a prestigious list of the best eats in the country. We’re gonna chat with the owner and chef leading the outfit. That is up next. It’s right here on Austin Signal. Howdy out there, this is Austin Signal, I’m your host Jerry Quijano, it is Thursday, September 24th, thank you for tuning in. The agency building Austin’s light rail system has ditched a controversial plan to relocate its headquarters to a high-rise overlooking Lady Bird Lake, instead the Austin Transit Partnership will expand its existing downtown office to the address next door. KUT’s Nathan Bernier reports on how millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent as the effort gears up to build a 10-mile light rail system.
Nathan Bernier [00:01:38] The Austin Transit Partnership is trying to put the pieces in place, so if the federal government agrees to cover half the cost of an $8 billion light rail system, they’ll be ready to go. ATP has 200 people working out of their office on Colorado Street now, and another 80 are coming and it’s getting cramped. So over the spring, ATP staff proposed moving to a high-rise on Congress Avenue at Cesar Chavez Street overlooking Lady Bird Lake. The price tag for this premium office space worked out to about $5.4 million a year, including renovations. Some people found out, and they started posting about it online. In early April, an aide to Mayor Kirk Watson texted him a social media post from the ex-user ATX underscore data. We obtained the text messages through the Texas Public Information Act. Watson was blunt in that exchange. What was he thinking, Watson said, doesn’t pass the smell test.
Austin Transit Partnership Board of Directors [00:02:29] Thank you for joining us for the board meeting of the Austin Transit Partnership Board of Directors
Nathan Bernier [00:02:34] Mayor Watson is a member of that board. In April, he asked the chair, Veronica Castro de Barrera, to cancel the vote on the lease. And she did.
Veronica Castro de Barrera [00:02:43] I believe this entire board needs more time to review the staff’s current recommendation and analysis.
Nathan Bernier [00:02:49] This week, ATP staff came back with a new proposal. They could stay where they are at 203 Colorado Street and expand to the address next door. ATP staff said that option did not exist in April. The new price works out to roughly $4.9 million annually, which roughly translates to a savings of half a million dollars a year. And the term of the lease is four years, about half as long.
Mayor Kirk Watson [00:03:13] Front of us today is the result of the review that has taken place since April and May.
Nathan Bernier [00:03:19] Mayor Watson took this as vindication.
Mayor Kirk Watson [00:03:21] It is a considerably smaller commitment than what was first proposed, and it gets us there without the long-term downtown commitment, which is one of the things I raised concerns about back in April. I believe that the process
Nathan Bernier [00:03:36] The board approved it unanimously, and that new lease starts in March. I’m Nathan Bernier in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:53] Across Austin and beyond, the name Wilbur Garces Perez has become a rallying cry for opponents of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Garces Peres remains in immigration detention after being shot by an ICE agent on Sunday in North Austin. Up until that encounter, friends and family say the 28-year-old lived a quiet life here in town. With more about why Garces Beres came to the U.S. And about his life here, KUT’s Rosebushel has this profile.
Mose Buchele [00:04:20] When I asked an old friend of Garces Perez to describe his life in Texas, one word came up a few times. Tranquilo. Calm. Quiet. Tranquilotrava- Chill, he said, working from Monday to Monday, not hurting anybody. His friend, who, like Garces Perez, also immigrated to the U.S. From Venezuela, asked not to be named for fear of consequences in the current political climate. He likes sports, he says. Family, soccer, and work. That’s the way it is with us.
Garces Perez’ friend [00:04:52] That’s our thing.
Mose Buchele [00:04:53] He says Garces Perez came to the U.S. To escape government repression in Venezuela. Before getting here, he also spent time in Peru, where Venezuelan immigrants suffer discrimination.
Garces Perez’ friend [00:05:04] Everything is legal.
Mose Buchele [00:05:06] He came here totally legally, he says. He came in with CBP-1, and he was working.
Garces Perez’ friend [00:05:12] I was working.
Mose Buchele [00:05:13] CBP One was a mobile app that allowed immigrants to process asylum claims and schedule immigration appointments under the Biden presidency. It was discontinued for that purpose under President Trump. In Austin, Garces Perez lived with his wife, also from Venezuela, who’s in the country working as a medical caregiver with plans to become a nurse.
Kate Lincoln Goldfinch [00:05:33] You know, what his wife says is that he’s very comforting for her.
Mose Buchele [00:05:36] This is Kate Lincoln Goldfinch, Garces Perez’s lawyer.
Kate Lincoln Goldfinch [00:05:40] So whenever she gets home from work, she works kind of late and she just loves it that he’s always there. She said, he’s not someone that goes out, he doesn’t drink, he is not out partying.
Mose Buchele [00:05:48] Lincoln Goldfinch says his wife had asked him to stay home on the Sunday afternoon he was shot and detained, but he wanted to earn money driving for DoorDash.
Kate Lincoln Goldfinch [00:05:56] He was actively delivering Doordash. He had just stopped at an Indian restaurant and was driving to deliver the food.
Mose Buchele [00:06:03] Friends and family say he would send much of what he made back to Venezuela, to his mother and his son.
Flor Perez [00:06:10] Be aware of it.
Flor Perez [00:06:10] That I have been working for.
Mose Buchele [00:06:12] In an interview with Telemundo, his mother, Flor Perez, said the money helped with his son’s treatment for cerebral palsy. His son needs many things, she said. Now he needs a splint that costs $300.
Flor Perez [00:06:24] $300.
Mose Buchele [00:06:27] Lawyer Kate Lincoln Goldfinch says Garces Perez did not know that ICE had deportation orders against him until he was taken into custody. She says the orders were finalized because officials sent a request for him to appear in court to the wrong address. That caused him to miss the appointment.
Kate Lincoln Goldfinch [00:06:44] And he updated his address with the court system, but they mailed his notice of hearing to the previous address. And I can just say, I’ve been doing this for 20 years, it happens all the time.
Mose Buchele [00:06:54] While not addressing whether the notice was sent to the wrong place, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed in a statement that the removal orders were made in abstentia. Quote, this is why aliens must show up to their removal proceedings, said the statement. Legal obligations do not end because someone’s address changed. Unquote. Garces Perez remains in custody at an ICE detention facility in Pearsall. Austin Congressman Greg Kassar visited him there Wednesday. He reported that After a medical evaluation, a specialist had determined Garces Perez should receive surgery to remove the bullet that remains lodged in his back. Casar said the shooting is another example of immigration enforcement gone horribly wrong under President Trump.
Greg Kassar [00:07:39] This ICE search that ended up shooting Wilbur has been arresting overwhelmingly people with no criminal record. In fact, if you all check the federal government stats about the Austin, San Antonio area, the overwhelming majority of people arrested by ICE’s own admission are people with no criminal history at all.
Mose Buchele [00:07:57] I asked Garces Perez’s friend whether he thought the protests sparked by the shooting may change things for immigrants. He said he hoped so, but he was not counting on it.
Garces Perez’ friend [00:08:07] This is going to continue.
Mose Buchele [00:08:08] It’s going to continue. It’s got to be realistic,” he said. In this case it happened to Wilbur, it happened to another person before, and more cases will keep coming. A federal judge has temporarily blocked Garces Perez’s deportation, asking him to be present at a September 30 court hearing. I’m Moes Buchel in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:38] Months after being rescued from a perch at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, an owl that won the hearts of Austinites has been released back into the wild. QUT’s Luz Moreno Lozano was there to witness the moment.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:08:52] The crowd was quiet outside the Wallflower Center Wednesday night. That was part of the agreement to be in attendance as the owl took its first flight into the wild. Austin Wildlife Rescue situated a cage in the back of a pickup truck and opened its gates. It took a few minutes and a little encouragement, but eventually the owl spread its long wings, swooped around the crowd, and flew toward the original nesting site where it hatched. About five months ago, the fate of this owl was uncertain. Its mother, Athena, is a resident grade-horned owl at the Wellflower Center. This nesting season, she seemed to be having a hard time keeping her two owlets warm and fed. Suddenly, one owlet died. Then a few days later, the center announced a second owlet had also died and Athena had abandoned the nest. But experts who were monitoring the nest’s camera feed noticed slight movement from the second owlette that prompted its rescue by the non-profit Austin Wildlife Rescue. A surrogate owl raised it and prepped it for life in the wild. Jules Mirren is executive director of the rescue.
Jules Mirren [00:09:56] Is profoundly gratifying to be able to take in an animal that needs everything from you and then being able to release it as an animal that needs nothing from you. And I think it is just an amazing end.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:10:13] Lee Clippard, executive director of the Wildflower Center, says after a difficult nesting year, witnessing the rescued owl take flight was a welcome sight.
Lee Clippard [00:10:21] It’s like a full circle moment to see the owlet, the owl now, no longer an owlet fly out of that cage and back into the wild again.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:10:29] Athena has been nesting in a soltal planter above the Wildflower Center’s entrance since 2012. Every year, she usually lays at least two eggs, and she has a good track record of raising and rearing owlets. There was some speculation that Athena’s mate, who would have bought food to the nest, had been hurt. An injured owl was found in a neighborhood near the Wildflowers Center just days after Athena abandoned her nest. It later died. But it’s not confirmed that Al was Athena’s mate. Staff at the center remain hopeful that Athena will return to nest in the spring. I’m Luz Moreno Lozano in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:09] Thank you for tuning in. This is Austin Signal. We’re coming up on a break. Before we let you go, just wanted to let you know about the weather outlook for the next week. We only have about a week left in September. And unfortunately, it looks like we’re gonna be right around 98 to 99 degrees throughout the rest of the month. Though, there is a chance of some rain next Wednesday that might bring our low, or excuse me, our high down to about 92. And looking a little further out at the weather channel forecast, possibly starting October. With some highs in the mid-80s. We’re still a long way out, so don’t exactly make plans yet, but hopefully things will pan out, and of course, when things change, we’ll keep you updated with the latest right here on Austin Signal. This is Austin Signal. Welcome back to the show. The New York Times recently announced their list of the 50 best restaurants in the country. Two joints from Texas made the list. Only one based right here in Austin. That is Paprika, the taco truck turned brick and mortar located in North Austin. Joining us now is Margarito Perez, owner of Paprika. Margarita, welcome to the Show.
Margarito Perez [00:12:20] Thanks for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:22] So tell us a little bit about paprika, you know, I know that from I’ve heard a little bit about your story. I know you had a field here in Austin, you were kind of making your way through the country. How did you get started here in
Margarito Perez [00:12:33] The common and the simplest way to say it is I was running away from Indiana going back to Mexico and ended up here in Austin visiting a Tío and all the time I’ve been cooking at home. I was selling tortas in Houston and after falling in love with Austin really I was like you know what maybe I’ll stick around here for a few years and I was undocumented Good fur. Most of my life up until a few years ago. And because of that, I had been working cash paying jobs all this time cooking as much as I could at home until I had a coworker say, hey, you know, you won’t shut up about food. And I’m a chef, I work at like the W Hotel and there’s a new project that’s opening up in West Austin. I think you should just give it a try and maybe you will. You know, get over your obsession with food or maybe it’ll be a good fit. Fast forward a few years where I worked at a few different kitchens but never with Mexican food and the opportunity came up to buy a food truck and I knew that I wanted to do something that was personal to me and kind of explore or get in touch with the roots, so to say.
Jerry Quijano [00:13:51] So, it sounds like you were learning on the job, literally, and learning away from the job as well. How much did you know about cooking?
Margarito Perez [00:13:59] As far as cooking, just home cooking. It’s, my folks got divorced when I was like 12 or 13 and I wanted to go live with my pops because I thought it would be easy and more gratifying. What ended up happening was that I had to learn how to cook for myself because he was working all the time and was like, hey, we’re effectively roommates. You’re gonna have to figure some stuff out now. And so I had the grow up pretty quickly and. Um, I still laugh about it. I remember going to the library and I would check out a bunch of CDs and a bunch of cookbooks and I had like a Rachel Ray for kids cookbook. And so, yeah, whenever folks want to knock on someone for looking at recipes or whatever, I’m like, Hey, I got started with Rachel Ray, but then, um, I just made a lot of bad dishes as a kid and my sisters and I would eat them and pretty quickly I was like, you know, if, if I. Don’t want to keep eating this. I got to learn something else. And so I live in a pretty small town in, in Indian. And, um, it was very fortunate to have a big family on my mom’s side. And so, I have 11 aunts and uncles on that side. And at the time, both of my grandparents there, and I just started, um. I spent a lot of time in my grandparents’ home anyway. And so would just be like, well, how do you, how do you do this? Because any time. That I craved something or thought of a food that would give me comfort. It would always be something that my willy was cooking or had cooked for us or one of my ideas who all learned from her. And so I just started to take advantage of that, really.
Jerry Quijano [00:15:39] And when you’re learning from a cookbook, there’s like a very, very approximate, you’re supposed to use a teaspoon of this and a tablespoon of that. But I find when I’m with my family and they’re cooking with my well, she’s kind of like, you just use this much and you pull this much. When you were learning from your family, were you writing anything down or you’re just kind of taking it all in and, okay, I’ll try this at my own place whenever I can.
Margarito Perez [00:15:58] No, that’s exactly it. And to this day, I think it’s something about paprika that maybe is not a, maybe makes things harder for us that we really don’t have recipes written down. We, you know, my wife makes all the salsas and the aguas and it’s like, we’ll have maybe a baseline of it’s gonna be approximately this many tomatillos or these are things you wanna make sure you get in there, but really it is by feel and just doing it over and over again.
Jerry Quijano [00:16:27] So tell us a little bit about the food truck experience. How long did you operate out of the food trucks?
Margarito Perez [00:16:32] Yeah, it was, we opened up in October of 2019. And up until the opportunity came up to get into the brick and mortar, we signed the lease earlier last year, and we moved into the spot in I think September or October. It was exactly six years of being in the food truck that we opened, moved into The Taqueria. That’s when we had our grand opening and everything. So we’re coming up on in October. It’ll be one year inside the taqueria and so yeah.
Jerry Quijano [00:17:03] Well, congratulations! Are there things about the food truck life that you miss, or things about the brick and mortar that you couldn’t have anticipated or maybe couldn’t have achieved in your old ducal truck?
Margarito Perez [00:17:12] Yeah, I think all of it, you know, I really miss being able to connect with folks as anxious and I think socially awkward as I feel all of the time. On the truck, it was almost like having a persona or a shield, you know, because my livelihood depends on this, so I have to be able to sell you a taco and I have to make sure it’s a good taco so that you eat it and you want to come back. I miss, I think, or I think fondly on the opportunity that we had to connect with folks, because at the same time, I would be able to like take your order and then turn around, cook the order, um, if I noticed, you know, that maybe you had some hesitation about the crispiness of something, you know, I was like, okay, I, in my, in my head, I’m already like, I think I can, I think I can wow them or I think I can prove them wrong. And, um and so it was very very personal and very intimate, I think, in that sense. I remember even my wife Hayden getting upset and my mom yelling at me because I used to just tell customers our recipes. They were like, I really like this salsa, how do you do it? And again, I was like, I don’t have anything written down for it, but you just do this, this, and this, and a little bit of that, and you can make it happen. And they would come back. Some folks would come like. Weekly and say, hey, well, I tweaked this, you know, how do I, I’m almost there. And they were like, Hey, we’re going to be out of business. If you just tell everyone how to make what you’re making. But, but yeah, I think, I, I think I missed that, that aspect of it. And as far of as, um, things that we have in a taqueria now that, that I don’t, that we didn’t have in the food truck, it’s, or maybe things that I didn’t anticipate it’s it’s been all of it, we’ve learned a lot as far as. How to be more organized and how to be more consistent because of that. And also because of that we’ve been able to bring on more folks. So it’s no longer, um, as intimate, maybe in that regard that it’s not just my wife and I, and maybe my mom or my pops, you know, it’s like now we have a whole team, but it’s really cool because now we also have that many more hands that are ready to feed you. I think from the moment that we opened up last October to where we’re at right now, approaching one year, we’ve grown so much and learned so much. And I feel like our tacos are better than ever.
Jerry Quijano [00:19:44] Well, I think that’s being felt all over the place because the New York Times recognized your taqueria as one of the 50 best restaurants in the country. That is obviously huge recognition and goes beyond here in Austin. One year into the restaurant, what is something that you’d like to learn in the future or add to the restaurants or, I don’t know, just learn about the business that you’re in right now?
Margarito Perez [00:20:03] Yeah, yeah, there’s a lot really. One of the, or not one of the biggest, I think, overarching ultimate goal for us would be able to nixtamalize our tortillas in-house. It’s something that we haven’t had like the space or the bandwidth. When I opened the food truck, that was kind of the big decision. I was like, hey, am I going to focus on the tortillas or am I gonna focus on everything else? Because that’s how big of a responsibility that is. And And really out of respect for that, we haven’t, you know, we will make small batches of masa that will, will nixtamalize and will grind. We have a little molinito and we’ll run specials and we used to do that. I think a little bit more frequently on the truck and the taqueria because of time, we hadn’t been able to, but that’s, that’s still very present as something that I want to work on. And with that also being from Northern Mexico and eating breakfast tacos here in Austin for years now. It’s like, I also want to get to the point where we can make our tortillas de harina in house. And again, same thing, growing up with just phenomenal tortillas harina at home, it’s tough for me to put anything that’s not up to that standard out into the world. So that’s why right now we get a lot of flak from folks that we don’t. We don’t offer our tacos on flour, but it’s because I don’t I don’t feel like the quality is there for many of the store-bought ones or the other ones that I can get my hands on. So that’s something we’re working on. And then really learning more about just so many of like ancestral techniques and foods and drinks that you see in Mexican gastronomy and also just with the cuts, you know, if like we wanna, we just recently have been. Teaching ourselves how to make buche, and I think it’s turning out, I think it’s turned out pretty well. And now we’re like, okay, well, how can we make cueritos and how can we make a better chicharrón? And so everything has been just learning it, like you said, on the job.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:11] OK, well, I have to end the interview there because my mouth is watering and I can’t take any more. We have been speaking with Margarito Perez. He is the owner of Paprika, one of the New York Times 50 best restaurants of 2026. Margarita, thank you for your time.
Margarito Perez [00:22:24] Aw, thank you so much, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:25] And thank you out there for tuning in. That is it for us today on Austin Signal, but we’re gonna have plenty more about the stories we share today in the podcast show notes, and you can always find more from us at kut.org slash signal. Caroline File is our technical director, Alexandra Hart is our producer, and Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer. I’m your host, Jerry Keakono. We’re gonna be back at the same time tomorrow. We’ll talk to you then.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
