Texas DA: ICE May Have Intentionally Hit Immigrant
A Texas district attorney has accused U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents of intentionally striking a 48-year-old Mexican national with an SUV during an enforcement operation and of removing critical evidence from the scene before investigators could collect it — allegations ICE has rejected as “reckless and false.”
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said his office has launched an independent criminal investigation into the Saturday, Oct. 10 incident that left Miguel Parra-Hernandez hospitalized with severe leg and hip injuries and still in ICE custody. Teare said the conduct could amount to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon under Texas law.
How the Accounts Diverge
According to NBC News, the two sides offer sharply conflicting versions of what happened on Clay Road near Highway 6 in west Harris County at roughly 7:30 a.m.
ICE says officers were conducting a “targeted enforcement operation” to arrest Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, a Mexican national with a final deportation order, when they attempted to stop a vehicle. The occupants fled on foot, and, in ICE’s telling, Parra-Hernandez “ran in front of an ICE vehicle and was struck.” ICE says the strike was unintentional and that officers immediately called EMS and provided aid.
Teare’s account, based on surveillance video his office has collected, is starkly different. He said the footage shows Parra-Hernandez running in a straight line while the ICE vehicle — a Jeep Cherokee — swerved into his path.
“This was an intentional striking and running over of the person by the vehicle, and in that case, that is an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in Texas,” Teare told NBC News.
KPRC 2 reported that Teare described the video as decisive. “Anyone that looks at that video knows that that’s not what happened,” he said. He added that “a charging decision is going to come in a relatively short order in this case,” according to The Texas Tribune.
The Evidence Dispute
At the center of the dispute is what happened to the vehicle involved in the collision. Teare said the Jeep Cherokee had a crash data recorder that could hold information about speed, steering and braking at the moment of impact — data that would have been preserved by towing the vehicle on a flatbed for forensic download.
Instead, he said, ICE refused to consent to the download. As prosecutors drafted a search warrant, the agent who had been driving allegedly got back into the vehicle and drove it away, likely erasing the data.
“In my 20-year career, I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Teare said.
Houston-area reporting from Houston Public Media confirmed the DA’s office launched the probe and opened a public evidence portal seeking witness photos and video. According to the outlet, no one who submits material is asked about citizenship or immigration status.
A senior Department of Homeland Security official told NBC News that multiple ICE officers at the scene were wearing body cameras and that ICE is reviewing the footage as part of an internal investigation. ICE did not answer questions about the crash data recorder or its handling of evidence.
The Victim and the Target
The case has also turned on the relationship between Parra-Hernandez and the man ICE says it was pursuing. ICE says the two men were in the same vehicle; Parra-Hernandez’s attorney, Kim Bruno, and the advocacy group FIEL Houston say he does not know Mendoza-Cervantes and was not with him.
According to The Guardian, Bruno said Parra-Hernandez had lived in the U.S. for more than three decades, having arrived at age 14, and has no criminal record. FIEL Houston said he was on his way to work applying stucco when he was struck, and that he had picked up another person for work.
ICE has emphasized Mendoza-Cervantes’s record — four prior DUI arrests, an unlawful firearm possession arrest, a prior removal and illegal reentries — while saying Parra-Hernandez was not the target of the stop. The agency has not cited a criminal history for Parra-Hernandez. Mendoza-Cervantes remains at large.
Family members made an emotional appeal at a Sunday news conference. “We want justice,” said the victim’s brother, Rodolfo Parra. His niece, Natxielly Castaneda, said, “We’re not animals, we shouldn’t be treated the way we’re being treated right now.”
Cesar Espinosa, executive director of FIEL Houston, said Parra-Hernandez told him he fled because the unmarked vehicles had dark, tinted windows, no sirens and no clear markings. Espinosa criticized the arrangement that leaves the injured man in the custody of the agency accused of striking him. The Guardian reported that a hospital visit by his representatives was cut short after ICE agents entered the room and began recording.
ICE’s Response and the Broader Pattern
ICE issued a blunt denial. “Allegations that ICE struck Miguel Parra-Hernandez intentionally are RECKLESS and FALSE,” a spokesperson said in a statement carried by KPRC 2. “Disgusting smears like these peddled by the media are leading to a more than 1,600% increase in assaults against our law enforcement officers and a 3,300% increase in vehicle attacks.” ICE did not provide data behind those figures.
Teare also told NBC News that two people from “an entirely different operation” were already in the back seat of the ICE vehicle when Parra-Hernandez was struck, and that all three are now in ICE custody. His office is working to keep them in the country as material witnesses. “There is not a single agency in the United States that would teach that once you put people in custody in your car, you then begin to pursue other people,” he said.
The incident is the latest in a string of contested ICE uses of force in Texas. According to CBS News, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said it was called to the scene around 7:20 a.m. In July, an ICE agent fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston as he drove to a job site; in September, an ICE agent shot and injured Wilber Rafael Garces Perez in Austin. DHS released preliminary information in the Salgado Araujo case that was later contradicted by video and witness statements.
Less than two weeks before the Houston collision, ICE issued internal guidance tightening rules for vehicle stops — banning high-speed chases and requiring lights, sirens and activated body cameras for traffic stops.
Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former DHS official now advising the Bipartisan Policy Center, told the Texas Tribune that quota pressure and reduced training are pushing officers toward extreme measures. “In the past agents would have said, ‘Never mind, it’s not that important. We’re not going to endanger ourselves or somebody else to get this arrest,’” she said.
What’s Next
Teare’s office has accused the federal government of not cooperating with the local investigation, and local officials are demanding full transparency. “ICE must cooperate fully with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office and release all video evidence of this incident,” Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones said, according to NBC News. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Houston) wrote on X that “ICE’s word alone is not enough.”
The dispute now sits at a jurisdictional fault line between federal immigration enforcement and local criminal authority — with the DA asserting a duty to prosecute potential state crimes by federal agents while ICE controls its personnel and the scene.
Several questions remain open: whether the crash data can be recovered, whether the body camera footage will be released, and how quickly Teare will announce a charging decision. A congressional field hearing on ICE shootings in Texas, led by Reps. Greg Casar and Garcia, is scheduled for Thursday in Austin — keeping national attention on an incident that local leaders say raises fundamental questions about who polices the police.