After facing widespread backlash for labeling victims of the Texas mass shooting “illegal immigrants,” Gov. Greg Abbott backtracked Monday.

A spokesperson said the third-term Republican has since learned that at least one of the victims may have been in the country legally and regrets “if the information was incorrect and detracted from the important goal of finding and arresting the criminal” responsible.

Officials are still searching for 38-year-old Francisco Oropesa, who they say shot his neighbors on Friday in Cleveland after they asked him to stop firing a rifle in the yard, according to The Associated Press. Oropesa allegedly killed the five victims, including a young boy, “execution style” at a home 50 miles northeast of Houston, law enforcement said.

On Sunday, Abbott offered a $50,000 reward for information on the suspected shooter, who he said “is in the country illegally and killed five illegal immigrants.”

Critics quickly decried the governor’s focus on immigration status as dehumanizing, and at least one activist took to Twitter to say the information is inaccurate.

“They were part of a family, @GregAbbott_TX — and one of the victims was a child,” U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat, said on Twitter. “What a disgusting lack of compassion and humanity.”

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, officials from the national nonprofit American Immigration Council and former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro also lambasted the governor’s words.

“Five human beings lost their lives and Greg Abbott insists on labeling them ‘illegal immigrants,’” said Castro, who served as the federal housing and urban development secretary, on Twitter.

By Monday, a picture of a photo ID card was circulating on social media that appeared to show one of the victims was a legal permanent resident of the United States.

Abbott’s office initially referred all questions to the Texas Department of Public Safety, which did not immediately respond. In the statement released Monday afternoon, his office said federal officials provided the information on the “criminal and the victims, including that they were in the country illegally.”

“The true focus remains on catching this heinous criminal who killed five innocent people and bringing the full weight of Texas law against him,” Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze said in a written statement.

The five people who died were identified as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 9. San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers has described the victims as being from Honduras, but did not specify their immigration status.

At a news conference over the weekend, Capers choked up when speaking about the youngest victim, who he said attended a local elementary school.

“I don’t care if he was here legally. I don’t care if he was here illegally. He was in my county,” he said. “Five people died in my county, and that is where my heart is.”

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