Harris County Indicts ICE Agent for Deliberate Crash Injuries

Federal immigration enforcement in the Houston area has faced renewed legal scrutiny following a local prosecution of one of its agents. On Friday, a grand jury returned an indictment for Mario Alberto Morales, a 33-year-old officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The charge is aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The incident occurred on October 10, when Morales drove an unmarked Jeep Cherokee into Miguel Parra Hernandez, a 48-year-old Mexican construction worker. Parra Hernandez suffered multiple leg fractures and a hip injury during the collision.

Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare announced the charge at a press conference in Houston. He stated that surveillance video played at the event showed Morales deliberately swerving his SUV into Parra Hernandez. The victim, who had no criminal record or active deportation order, was running across a restaurant parking lot to escape after jumping from a pickup truck that agents had attempted to stop.

Teare questioned the preparation of Morales, who was hired by the agency in August 2025. The prosecutor said he reviewed thousands of law enforcement resumes and was unfamiliar with any agency that would have hired Morales based on his background. Teare noted that his office had not received any training records for the agent.

During a 911 call recorded at the scene, Morales told the dispatcher that Parra Hernandez ran in front of his vehicle. The official account released by the agency the next day repeated this version of events. However, Teare described the evidence presented to the grand jury as clear.

In a statement on Friday, an ICE spokesperson rejected the idea that the collision was intentional. The spokesperson called the allegations reckless and false, describing the indictment as a political stunt by Houston sanctuary politicians. The agency argued that federal officers acting in the course of their duties should only be investigated by other federal agencies, not local governments.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez provided additional context during the press conference. Investigators found that at the time of the crash, Morales’s SUV also contained two handcuffed detainees from a previous, unrelated operation. Gonzalez said the arrangement was very unsafe, noting that the detainees had limited movement in the backseat.

Teare said the agency deported at least two material witnesses within a week of the incident, over his objection. He noted that Parra Hernandez is currently in ICE custody and is not able to leave his rehab facility, yet the agency is scheduling court dates to try to deport him.

The incident is part of a pattern of local prosecutions following federal immigration operations. In January, an ICE officer in Minnesota was charged with assault and falsely reporting a crime after shooting a Venezuelan man. Teare’s office is also investigating the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston in July, a victim who was not the intended target of that enforcement action.

ICE identified the person it was pursuing during the Parra Hernandez incident as Jose Mendoza-Cervantes. The agency released an image of a man it claimed was the target. The Houston-based group FIEL said the photo actually showed Jose Hector Jimenez, who died in 2017 while being pursued by federal authorities. FIEL provided a Mexican death certificate for Jimenez to support that finding.