HOUSTON — A Harris County grand jury has indicted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on a felony charge after he struck a fleeing immigrant with an unmarked SUV during a pursuit in a shopping center parking lot, a case prosecutors say is the first criminal charge brought against a federal agent in Texas over conduct tied to the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said the grand jury charged ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales, 33, with second-degree aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a charge that carries two to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors say Morales chased 48-year-old Mexican national Miguel Parra-Hernandez on foot through a parking lot on Oct. 10 and struck him with the vehicle, leaving him with multiple leg fractures and a hip injury. A warrant has been issued for Morales's arrest, and Teare described him as one of the "surge hires" brought on last year to accelerate the administration's mass-deportation effort.
Dueling accounts of the body-camera footage
ICE has disputed the DA's version of events, saying Parra-Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle rather than being struck deliberately. Teare says body-camera footage released publicly contradicts that account, describing Morales steering the SUV toward Parra-Hernandez as he fled. "They've declared open season on a huge percentage of our population," Teare said of ICE's broader enforcement tactics in Houston, adding, "They are just driving around our city, grabbing people," comments reported by CBS News. ICE, in turn, called the indictment "nothing more than a political stunt by Houston sanctuary politicians," and said the allegation that Morales struck Parra-Hernandez intentionally was "reckless and false." Morales's attorney said the district attorney was prosecuting his client "for political gain."
The case lands amid a broader standoff between Harris County prosecutors and federal immigration authorities, with Teare separately accusing DHS of failing to cooperate with his investigators and, he alleges, destroying evidence — an accusation the department has not substantively addressed publicly. A sister newsroom's report from the day the charge was first unsealed, filed within hours of the grand jury's decision, captured many of the same dueling denials now shaping the case. The indictment is a rare instance of a state prosecutor bringing charges against a federal immigration officer, a jurisdictional friction likely to escalate as the case moves toward trial, with Morales's defense expected to challenge the charge on grounds that he was acting within the scope of his federal duties.
