Cesar Espinosa displayed a “Wanted” poster of Jose Mendoza-Cervantes during a Wednesday morning press conference and told a crowd that while that pictured man was the alleged target of an immigration sting that ended with the hospitalization of a law-abiding Houstonian, no one he’s talked to has ever met the man in the photograph.
“Have you ever seen this man?” Espinosa asked members of Miguel Parra-Hernandez’s family, who stood next to him with signs that said “Human rights don’t require citizenship,” and “Enforcing the law doesn’t put you above it.” They all shook their heads no.
“Multiple witnesses have come forward and can corroborate that nobody knows who this Jose Mendoza is,” Espinosa said. “Nobody has ever seen this character. He was not anywhere around the scene.”
The implication is that federal agents, claiming they’re pursuing a particular violent criminal, are actually just arbitrarily cruising the streets of Houston, leading people on high-speed chases that end in violence. “This notion that ICE was looking for this person, we believe is not true,” Espinosa said. “As a matter of fact, we don’t even know if Mr. Jose Mendoza exists.”
Parra-Hernandez, a 48-year-old construction worker, was driving a truck that didn’t belong to him near Clay Road and Highway 6 on the morning of October 10. Neither Parra-Hernandez nor his passenger, a man identified as “Omar,” had a criminal history or any active immigration warrants, said Espinosa, the executive director of immigrant-led civil rights group FIEL Houston.
When the men attempted to flee, a Jeep Cherokee driven by an ICE agent ran over Parra-Hernandez’s legs. He remains hospitalized at Katy Memorial Hermann Hospital and has already had one surgery but will require more, family members said Wednesday. Espinosa said the ICE agent who is guarding his hospital room is the one who ran him over, but that has not been independently confirmed, and the officer hasn’t been publicly identified.
Omar got away and has not yet spoken to authorities, Espinosa said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued just one brief statement since the incident occurred last week, saying they were targeting Mendoza-Cervantes, whom they described as a convicted felon who has been deported several times and illegally re-entered the United States.
The day after the incident occurred, Espinosa told a reporter he’d heard that ICE was pursuing a felony warrant on the truck Parra-Hernandez was driving. However, on Wednesday, the FIEL leader said he’s confirmed that the truck was registered to Parra-Hernandez’s brother and did not have any warrants assigned to it.
Again, Espinosa says, all the evidence points to immigration authorities just racially profiling and randomly chasing people who appear to be Latino.
“If Mr. Jose Mendoza does exist, immigration has enough money, with the Big Beautiful Bill that provided $71 billion, to do a proper investigation,” he said. “They have to stop pulling people over just because they fit a description, just because they may seem like an immigrant, just because they’re driving a white truck on the way to work.”
It is likely that Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare will file charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against the ICE agent involved in the October 10 incident, based on comments the DA made earlier this week confirming that surveillance video appears to show that the officer ran over Parra-Hernandez intentionally.
But if Parra-Hernandez wasn’t the target, why was the officer pursuing the vehicle so aggressively? Espinosa asked.
The civil rights leader cited the July 7 chase through an East End neighborhood which ended violently when Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was fatally shot by an ICE agent. Araujo wasn’t the intended target. Neither was Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, a DoorDash driver who was shot by an ICE agent in Austin on September 20. Perez was transferred to a detention center while he still had a bullet lodged in his back.
Espinosa said he and Parra-Hernandez’s attorney Kim Bruno are asking that Parra-Hernandez get proper medical treatment before he’s moved to a detention facility.
When last week’s collision occurred, two men were handcuffed in the backseat of the ICE vehicle, having been picked up as part of a separate immigration sting earlier that morning. Bruno said she’s also representing one of the detainees, Luis Delfin, who is now being held at an ICE facility in Conroe.
“He is a key witness and the DA’s office is working with him to get his statement,” Bruno said, noting that Delfin shared with her what he heard through the radio system before, during and after the vehicle he was in ran over Parra-Hernandez. She declined to offer more detail about what the witness heard.
The man’s sister, Nidia Delfin, said her brother has lived in Houston for more than 30 years and is not a criminal. “He was just going to breakfast on the way to work when they got pulled over,” she said. “My brother is afraid. My parents are afraid, but we are speaking up and we are asking the community to step up so Mr. Parra can get some justice. What happened to him is not OK. This is not how we treat human beings.”
She added that she and her brother do not know Jose Cervantes-Mendoza.
Teare has said that federal agents have been uncooperative as he conducts his independent investigations into matters that have occurred within Harris County.
“ICE tactics are growing more brazen and more dangerous,” the DAsaid in a statement earlier this week. “High-speed pursuits and aggressive operations on busy streets put everyone at risk. No badge puts anyone above the law in Harris County and we will continue to follow evidence wherever it may lead.”
Espinosa said other elected officials, including Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Commissioners Rodney Ellis and Lesley Briones, have reached out to Parra-Hernandez’s family while the investigations are being conducted. In addition to the DA’s probe, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the collision as a pedestrian-vehicle incident.
Houston Controller Chris Hollins attended Wednesday’s press conference and condemned ICE’s “recklessness and lawlessness.”
“Mr. Parra has been a resident of this city going back 30 years,” Hollins said. “His family is like the millions of families across Houston who are trying to work hard and make ends meet. In this situation, Mr. Parra is now captive by the very people who hurt him. He deserves medical care, to be surrounded by family and full access to legal representation. His family deserves justice.”
Hollins said Houston, the most diverse city in the country that is powered by immigrants, should not accept such acts of violence. “We should not be actively cooperating with this version of ICE, this ICE that does not care about human life, this ICE that operates like thugs and gangs that happen to have a badge. We have to find a way to stop this.”
