A grand jury in Texas on Friday indicted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who struck and injured a Mexican construction worker with a vehicle in Houston this month, the authorities said.
The agent, Mario Alberto Morales, 33, is facing state charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, said Sean Teare, the district attorney in Harris County, which includes Houston. He added that Mr. Morales has not surrendered. Efforts to reach Mr. Morales were not successful, and it was unclear whether he had legal representation.
Mr. Morales is the first federal agent to face charges in Texas as part of President Trump’s immigration crackdown. In September, federal prosecutors charged an ICE officer who had shot a Venezuelan man in Minneapolis with lying about it. The officer, Christian Castro, faces several counts of making false statements in his account of the Jan. 14 shooting and has pleaded not guilty.
The Houston worker struck by the ICE agent is Miguel Parra Hernandez, 48, an undocumented immigrant. He was driving to his job on Oct. 10 when federal immigration authorities tried to pull him over in unmarked vehicles, according to Houston immigration advocates.
When Mr. Parra Hernandez stopped the car, he and a passenger tried to flee. ICE has said that Mr. Parra Hernandez had run in front of one of its vehicles and was struck. But surveillance video from a business showed Mr. Parra Hernandez and another man running away as an ICE vehicle veered around the corner and appeared to hit Mr. Parra Hernandez from behind.
Mr. Parra Hernandez remains in ICE custody, at a rehabilitation center recovering from severe leg injuries, the authorities said at a news conference on Friday announcing the charges.
The agency said in an unsigned statement that the allegations against Mr. Morales were false and that ICE agents “are held to the highest standards of professionalism, integrity and ethical conduct.”
Criminal cases against federal agents have proved challenging. Prosecutors in other districts have acknowledged that they face formidable practical and legal challenges in holding federal agents accountable for on-duty conduct.
The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution gives federal officials broad immunity from state prosecution, but Texas officials said they believe that video evidence and 911 calls reflect undoubtable misconduct.
“The evidence that we have in this case is as clear as any that I’ve ever prosecuted or investigated,” Mr. Teare said. “I hope that it also sends a loud and clear message to every ICE officer who feels that they have a free pass to terrorize our streets.”
Mr. Teare has said that investigators believe the vehicle that struck Mr. Parra Hernandez contained people detained earlier, and that the driver should not have been pursuing the construction worker. Federal agents took the ICE vehicle away, contrary to standard investigation protocol and over the objections of local investigators, Mr. Teare said.
Although he has not reviewed Mr. Morales’s training record, Mr. Teare said Mr. Morales was one of the agents hired in August 2025 for a surge in President Trump’s deportation campaign.
ICE officials said initially they were chasing an undocumented Mexican man facing deportation and criminal charges. But a photo they shared of their target in a bulletin showed a man whose family says he died almost a decade ago.
During the briefing Friday, Mr. Teare played two videos.
In one, Mr. Parra Hernandez lies on the ground screaming, “You ran me over!” and “My leg!” An agent then says, “Yeah, like I was coming in, and I hit him with the car.”
Moments later, in a 911 call, the agent said: “I tried to get around him, and he hit my car, part of the truck.”
Prosecutors said the evidence will show that Mr. Morales tried to cover up what happened.
“As you can clearly see, Morales aggressively steered his vehicle into Para Hernandez,” Mr. Teare said as he showed one video. “He ran over both of his legs, leaving him seriously injured and hospitalized to this day. “
ICE has faced scrutiny from state and local officials over traffic stops. The tactic has been a key part to the Trump administration’s escalation of immigration arrests this summer, but many have turned violent or deadly.
Prosecutors in Harris County are also investigating the July ICE killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father and construction business owner who had also been on his way to work when he was followed by unmarked ICE vehicles. And in Austin, the police and Travis County prosecutors have opened an investigation into the shooting of a Venezuelan man by an immigration agent during a September traffic stop.
Immigration activists in Houston with ties to the case called the charges in Friday a positive step.
“Today our battered and beaten community regains a glimpse of hope in our system,” said Cesar Espinosa, a leader with Fiel, an immigrant advocacy group.
Susan Beachy contributed research.
The post Houston Grand Jury Indicts ICE Agent on Charges of Ramming Man in Chase appeared first on New York Times.
