A Texas grand jury indicted ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, alleging he drove his vehicle into Miguel Parra Hernandez, who was on foot, earlier this month in Houston.
The indictment of Morales, 33, was returned by a Harris County grand jury Friday morning, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said.
It is the first time an immigration agent is indicted in Texas. ICE enforcement officer Christian Castro was charged in the January shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis in Minnesota.
Teare said the charge is a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years.
“The evidence that we have in this case is as clear as any that I’ve ever prosecuted or investigated,” Teare said in a news conference Friday.
Teare played newly released body-camera video that he said belonged to Morales. It was edited to play alongside security camera video from a local business that had been made public soon after the collision. The bodycam video showed the officer yanking his steering wheel to the left and seconds later, a wail can be heard.
The video then shows Parra on the ground with his face on the pavement and the officer turns him over. “You ran over me,” Parra cries in Spanish.
The video shows the officer standing over Parra, who continues crying in pain. The officer tells him, “You got hit with the car, bro.” The officer tries to pick Parra up from his shoulders, but Parra cries out louder.
The officer is then heard saying, “I was coming in and I hit him with the car.” He suggests trying to put Parra in the car.
After the video was shown, Teare said, “An ICE badge does not give you free rein to injure, kill, or violate the constitutional rights of anyone.”
The Oct. 10 collision left Parra with hip, leg and ankle injuries, including a broken leg, according to his family and representatives. Parra is at a rehab facility under ICE custody, Teare said.
In a statement issued after the collision, ICE said Parra “ran in front of an ICE vehicle and was struck.” The agent was driving an SUV.
But after Teare’s office reviewed video from local businesses and bystanders that was collected by investigators, the DA accused the agent of deliberately running over Parra, allegations ICE said were “reckless” and “false.”
Miguel Parra Hernández.Courtesy FIEL
In an emailed statement shortly after the indictment was announced, an ICE spokesperson said the indictment “is nothing more than a political stunt by Houston sanctuary politicians.”
The spokesperson stated that only federal agencies can investigate “federal officers acting in the course of their duties,” and that local governments don’t have the authority to run such an investigation.
Teare, a Democrat, said at the news conference that it’s “false” that they can’t investigate.
ICE repeated its statement that the allegations that Morales struck Miguel Parra-Hernandez intentionally are “reckless” and “false.”
A senior DHS official told NBC News earlier this month that the department had placed an officer on administrative leave after the collision.
David A. Lindenmuth, Morales’ attorney, told NBC News he had not seen the indictment, but he said Morales is being charged with “a crime created out of thin air.”
He said Morales was reacting to an oncoming vehicle and had to either strike the other car head-on or “deviate.” Lindenmuth confirmed the oncoming vehicle he referred to was a truck stopped alongside a blue dumpster.
“This wasn’t something that Mr. Morales was looking for. He wasn’t trying to harm anybody … He didn’t knowingly strike this person. He did not intentionally strike this person. He did not recklessly strike this person. He was caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place,” Lindenmuth said.
The scene where Miguel Parra Hernández was hit by a vehicle driven by ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales in Houston, earlier this month.KPRC
Two people arrested in a separate operation were in the ICE vehicle when it struck Parra. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said they were handcuffed and shackled, which he said no law enforcement agency would deem acceptable.
Teare’s office was able to interview one of the men, Jose Presa Cañada, when he was being detained near the U.S.-Mexico border. Luis Delfín Martínez, also in the vehicle, was immediately detained.
“We’re keeping very, very constant tabs on where they are and as they’re sadly being shipped out without any interviews and investigation,” Teare said.
Teare said Morales was hired by ICE in August 2025. He said based on his experience reviewing thousands of job applications and résumés for law enforcement officers around the state, “I’m not familiar with a single agency that would have hired this person.”
Lindenmuth called the comment “atrocious.” He said Morales spent two years in the military and was a military police officer and a paratrooper. He said he also worked alongside immigration officers transporting immigrants arrested by ICE. He said he is an ordained Christian pastor.
“He is a man of faith. To our knowledge he has never been in any kind of trouble before with the law or any kind of excessive force, so he seems like the perfect person to be hired for a law enforcement job,” the attorney said.
Parra has lived in the U.S. for 34 years, having arrived at age 14, and he has no criminal record, his attorney told NBC News. He had been doing stucco work when he was struck, according to an advocate. DHS said he was in the country without legal permission.
In an interview with NBC News following the news conference, Teare described Parra as “struggling” physically with constant pain in his leg and mentally “deteriorating.”
“This is a man who’s never committed a crime in 30 years living here,” Teare said. “We’re also talking about a man who may never walk again.”
He also emphasized he’s being monitored 24 hours a day.
“So, it’s inhumane treatment on top of inhumane treatment, and anyone would struggle to stand up to that,” Teare said.
ICE has said the incident happened when it was conducting a targeted enforcement operation to arrest Jose Mendoza-Cervantes; it said it was not targeting Parra or another man who was also in a truck with Mendoza-Cervantes before they fled on foot.
But Mendoza-Cervantes’ daughter told Houston immigrant rights group FIEL of Houston and Parra’s attorney Kim Bruno that her father had been dead since 2017.
Teare’s office also is investigating the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in July by an ICE officer in a vehicle stop.
Teare said the investigation in the Parra case was accelerated by the fact that Morales and other officers were wearing body cameras and the sheriff’s office and the district attorney’s civil rights division chief were able to get onto the scene immediately.
“Nothing about today changes our laser focus on continuing and concluding the investigation into Mr. Salgado’s death as quickly and as thoroughly as we can,” Teare said.