Candles are lit at a vigil in Texas for the victims of an attack on a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. One detainee was killed and two were critically wounded in the shooting.

The names of three victims shot by a sniper at a Dallas ICE field office have been identified to USA TODAY by a senior Department of Homeland Security official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Two days after the Sept. 24 fatal shooting that left one ICE detainee dead and two wounded, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hasn't publicly released the names of the victims. But the senior DHS official provided USA TODAY with the victims' names and their alleged criminal histories.

The official didn't specify which of the victims is deceased, nor the extent of the injuries of the two wounded men who survived. One of the victims is a Mexican national, another is a Venezuelan national, and the other victim's nationality was not released.

One was identified as Angel Garcia-Hernandez of Mexico, the senior official said. Garcia-Hernandez allegedly has convictions for giving fictitious information, evading arrest, driving while intoxicated and fleeing police.

On Sept. 26, family members of a man identified as Miguel Angel Garcia posted a GoFundMe account, identifying him as one of the critically wounded victims of the ICE facility shooting in Dallas. The account pleads for help for a father and husband "who is in grave condition."

The DHS source listed two additional victims. They are José Andrés Bordones-Molina of Venezuela and Norlan Guzman-Fuentes, whose nationality wasn't identified.

Bordones-Molina has a criminal history that includes property theft and a traffic offense. Guzman-Fuentes has previous arrests for battery, improper exhibit of a firearm or dangerous weapon, criminal mischief, driving while intoxicated, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Even if some had criminal records and needed to be deported, none of them deserved to die or be gravely injured by a snipers bullet, said George Rodriguez, a Dallas-based immigration attorney.

"We need to recognize that these are people," he said. "These are spouses, these are parents, this is somebody's child." The lack of information on the injured detainees was sowing widespread frustration among advocates, who claimed the detainees injuries were being overlooked.

Garcia-Hernandez, 32, is in critical condition, his family told Spanish-language network Univision, saying he grew up in Arlington, Texas, and has lived in the country for over 20 years. He is originally from San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

His relatives told the Spanish language news outlet that he was shot multiple times in his side, back stomach and neck.

"I think it's a tragedy that we don't know anything about the families of the victims," said Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project. "It's incredibly harmful that they have not mentioned the families or made clear that they've notified the families."

'Black hole of information'

At a press conference on Sept. 25, Joseph Rothrock, Dallas FBI's Special Agent in Charge, said authorities were still reaching out to foreign consulates and families of those injured or killed in the attack.

"I won't be providing any updates at this time on the detainees who were injured," he said. "ICE has a process … That process is ongoing, so we’ll defer to our ICE counterparts at some point to determine when is the right time to release that information."

Often, ICE publicly releases information on death-in-custody cases within a few days.

In the latest incident, a 32-year-old Chinese citizen died on Aug. 5 while at an ICE processing center in Philipsburg, Penn. The next day, the agency published a press release announcing the death, along with the detainee's name, age and country of origin.

ICE's own National Detention Standards require the agency put out a death report within 24 to 48 hours, said Katie Blankenship, director of Sanctuary of the South, which provides low-cost legal assistance to immigrants.

"That there is this sort of tragedy with this sort of black hole of information is troubling," she said. "It's confusing and it's not at all according to protocol."

But the recent shooting is different in that the detainees were injured during an attack on an ICE facility, making it an active FBI case. Rothrock called the shooting a "targeted, ambush-style attack on law enforcement."

"The clearest indication of motivation were his words,” he said at a Sept. 25 news conference. "He wanted to cause terror. He wanted to harm ICE personnel."

In a post on the social media site X, the Department of Homeland Security blamed "the shameful rhetoric from activists, sanctuary politicians and the media" for fueling "a culture of hate against law enforcement.

Panicked phone calls, families looking for loved ones

Texas leads the nation in the number of people detained in ICE deportation sweeps, with 28,243 arrested from Jan. 20 through the end of July, and Dallas tops Texas with 10,901 ICE arrests, according to federal statistics compiled by independent researchers.

Dallas-area immigrant advocates said the slow release of information has been the norm during the recent ramp up in ICE operations

In the hours after the shooting, members of Vecinos Unidos DFW, a Dallas-area advocacy group, received panicked phone calls and social media messages from families worried that their loved ones detained in ICE operations on Sept. 24 could be among the shooting victims, said Flaka Martinez, an organizer with the group.

She said she and others are frustrated at how federal officials were focusing on ICE agents being targeted and seemingly overlooking the threat to detainees.

"They are choosing to be in that line of work," Martinez said of the agents. "They're trained; they're ready for that kind of stuff. Those community members are not – they're the ones in [the hospital] fighting for their lives. They're the ones who lost their lives."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Black hole of information': Victims shot by sniper at Dallas ICE facility identified

Reporting by Lauren Villagran, Eduardo Cuevas, Rick Jervis and Nick Penzenstadler, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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