The widow of one of the people killed when a gunman opened fire on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Texas last month has spoken out to question whether the political violence rising under the Trump administration played a role in her husband’s death.
Stephany Gauffeny lost her husband, Miguel García-Hernández, when he became the second of two men to die in the attack outside a detention center in Dallas, after succumbing to his gunshot wounds.
“There’s so much hate going on with immigrants and ICE now, so it has crossed my mind if this would have happened under a different administration. It has certainly played a part in his death,” said the 32-year-old mother in an interview with the Guardian, her first since her husband’s death.
She added: “Sometimes it feels better to be asleep than to be awake, because when I sleep I forget about everything and when I wake up this reality hits me.”
Three days after García-Hernández’s death, Gauffeny gave birth to their third child, a son, Miles Alexander, the name chosen by the father he will never meet. A week after the birth the family buried García-Hernández, 31, in Arlington, where they had recently bought a house, on the outskirts of Dallas.
The authorities described the shooting as a lone, “targeted attack” on ICE and said the gunman, Joshua Jahn – who shot himself dead after spraying the exterior of the facility with bullets – wrote “ANTI-ICE” on one bullet casing.
But in the violent chaos, no law enforcement officers were injured and instead a government van was hit that was holding shackled immigrants on their way to detention. Three detainees from Latin America were shot, including García-Hernández.
The other two victims were 37-year-old Norlan Guzman-Fuentes of El Salvador, who died on the day of the shooting, and 33-year-old José Andres Bordones-Molina of Venezuela, who was later released from the hospital.
Related: Pregnant women report medical neglect in ICE detention, rights groups say
Gauffeny said the authorities notified her that García-Hernández had been in an accident, but little information was given about the shooting. García-Hernández, who was undocumented, had been hospitalized in critical condition.
She found out through media reports that García-Hernández was sitting in the van outside the facility when gunfire erupted.
“You know, I haven’t gotten any calls from the authorities besides the one I got the day of the shooting,” said Gauffeny. As she sat for the interview at her lawyer’s office in Dallas last week, she watched over her newborn sleeping in his stroller by her side.
“How many people were in the van? How many times did he actually get shot? Was he conscious at all? They never gave me any details,” she said.
García-Hernández was born in San Luis Potosí, a state in central Mexico. He came to the United States as an undocumented 14-year-old in 2008, and built a life in Texas. But on 8 August this year, García-Hernández had been arrested for driving under the influence and taken to the Tarrant county corrections center in Fort Worth. On that same date, ICE placed a detainer against his release, which allowed immigration officials to pick him up once he served a short time in jail.
“He was a father, a husband and a friend, and he was in the process of fixing his [immigration] status,” Gauffeny said. She is currently weighing filing a lawsuit against the authorities.
Because García-Hernández was married to a US citizen and he was the primary source of income for his household, he was able to apply for a waiver that, if granted, would have effectively erased the transgression of his illegal entry into the US and allowed him to get a green card.
“He wanted to have his own painting company; he made business cards and said he was going to buy the equipment. He was so excited and had a lot going for him,” Gauffeny said.
On the day of the shooting, Donald Trump, in the context of the anti-ICE message on one bullet casing, posted on Truth Social: “This is despicable! The Brave Men and Women of ICE are just trying to do their jobs, and remove the ‘WORST of the WORST’ Criminals out of our Country, but they are facing an unprecedented increase in threats, violence, and attacks by Deranged Radical Leftists.”
ICE issued a statement six days after the shooting about García-Hernández’s death, saying: “Our thoughts are with his family and this tragedy underscores the terrible cost of dangerous rhetoric and violence against the men and women of ICE who are simply carrying out their sworn law enforcement mission.”
Gauffeny said that while the family experienced an outpouring of support from many, including via a fundraiser, she has also been targeted with hate messages from strangers.
“I received comments on social media from people saying that they are not sorry,” she said, adding: “Does the fact that he entered illegally mean that he deserves to be killed the way he was killed?”
