Mario Alberto Morales, the 33-year-old ICE agent accused of intentionally running over a fleeing Mexican immigrant in Houston last month, turned himself in to Harris County authorities on Monday.
Morales was indicted last week by a grand jury and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, stemming from an October 10 incident in which Morales pursued a vehicle driven by Mexican national Miguel Parra-Hernandez. When Parra-Hernandez exited the vehicle and fled, surveillance and body camera footage appears to show that the ICE agent steered his SUV toward the fleeing man, running over his legs.
Parra-Hernandez, who remains hospitalized with his leg broken in three places, was not the intended target of the ICE operation and did not have a deportation order. According to his relatives, Parra-Hernandez has lived in Houston for more than 30 years. He is currently being supervised by ICE agents at a rehabilitation hospital in the Houston area.
District Judge Matthew Peneguy set Morales’ bond Monday morning at $30,000, less than the $75,000 requested by prosecutors. The Harris County Jail did not respond to a request for Morales’ booking photo and it was unknown at press time whether he bonded out immediately.
Morales was placed on leave by Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the collision, but federal immigration authorities and Morales’ hired attorneys have condemned the indictment.
The ICE agent hired Gregor Wynne Arney PLLC to represent him. One of the firm’s attorneys is former Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, who lost a bid for re-election to DA Sean Teare in the 2024 Democratic primary. Ogg was present in court with Morales and other attorneys at Monday’s bond hearing but is not the lead attorney on the case.
Attorney Michael Wynne issued a statement highlighting Morales’ two years of service as a U.S. Army veteran and credentials as an ordained police chaplain. The statement suggests that Teare, who announced the indictment on October 30, should not be involved in the case.
“To our knowledge, no federal law enforcement officer acting under color of federal law has been prosecuted by a local district attorney in Harris County in recent memory,” Wynne said. “The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution raises serious questions about the state’s authority to pursue this prosecution.”
“This is political theater,” the statement continues. “Sean Teare was handed $2.5 million by the Harris County Commissioners Court to go after ICE for political reasons while taxpayers are being told the County is broke. This is Democrats warring with Republicans at the expense of a good man.”
Teare, who worked for six years as an investigator of vehicular crimes in the DA’s office prior to running for his current position, says that surveillance video and body camera footage — which were played at last week’s press conference — give him confidence that Morales ran over Parra-Hernandez on purpose.
Teare also claims that the ICE agent lied when he called 911 for an ambulance, saying, “I tried to get around him and he hit my car.”
Shortly after the collision, Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed that their intended target was Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, whom they described as a convicted felon who has been deported multiple times and re-entered the United States illegally. Teare confirmed last week that Mendoza-Cervantes has been dead since 2017.
Teare and Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez showed video footage at Friday’s news conference that they say demonstrates the hit was intentional. They also shared Morales’ body camera footage and a portion of his 911 call for an ambulance in which he told a dispatcher,
Wynne’s statement regarding the indictment claims that Morales has spent more than a decade in service to the community, working as a prison guard and contracted transportation officer for ICE prior to being hired as a detention officer in 2025.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice records show, however, that while working as a corrections officer at the McConnell Unit in Beeville, Morales was disciplined for “falsification of records, specifically documenting security rounds as completed when they were not conducted.” He resigned from that job while on probation in 2018.
The attorney’s press release also doesn’t mention Morales’ failed bid for a congressional seat in Brownsville last year. It is apparent, however, that the hired defense attorneys believe their client was wrongly accused.
“No crime has been committed,” Wynne said.
