An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Harris County, Texas, has been indicted on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after prosecutors accused him of striking a man with an SUV during a pursuit. Mario Alberto Morales surrendered and appeared in court on November 2. A judge set bond at $30,000. The case has drawn attention to the vetting and training of recently recruited immigration officers as the Trump administration continues to expand federal immigration enforcement.
Prosecutors say Morales pursued Miguel Parra Hernandez through a Houston parking lot on October 10 and struck the Mexican construction worker. Harris County officials say surveillance and body-camera footage contradict ICE’s account that Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle. Hernandez suffered a broken leg and is recovering at a rehabilitation facility while in ICE custody. ICE has denied that the collision was intentional and described the allegations as false. Those competing accounts have not been resolved at trial.
Morales’ attorney says the collision was accidental and has characterized the prosecution as politically motivated. An indictment is an accusation, not a finding of guilt. At the November 2 hearing, the judge set bond at $30,000, below the $75,000 prosecutors had requested. Morales’ attorney has said his client had worked for ICE for a little more than a year and had previously served in the military and held law-enforcement-related jobs. The criminal case will determine whether prosecutors can prove the charge.
NBC News reported that Morales joined ICE in August 2025. Before that, he worked for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and resigned while on probation. A department spokesperson said his employment record involved falsifying security-round records by documenting checks that had not been conducted. Morales’ lawyer emphasized his military and public-service background and accused the district attorney of using the case to attack the federal government’s immigration agenda. The reported employment history is relevant to screening questions, but it does not establish whether Morales committed the alleged assault.
The case comes after a major expansion of the federal immigration workforce. An Associated Press investigation published earlier in 2026 reported that ICE hired thousands of officers and that some recruits were allowed to begin work before all background checks were complete. NBC News has also reported concerns from officials about the qualifications and training of some new hires. ICE has said it would retrain thousands of officers who received expedited instruction during the hiring surge. These reports raise questions about institutional safeguards; they do not show that every recent recruit is unqualified or that the hiring process caused this incident.
Harris County prosecutors argue that video evidence supports the charge against Morales. His attorney and ICE dispute the allegation that he deliberately struck Hernandez and have questioned the authority of local officials to investigate a federal officer acting in an official capacity. The case could involve legal arguments about federal protections for officers carrying out their duties. At this stage, the established procedural facts are that a grand jury returned an indictment and Morales was released on bond. His guilt, the legality of the encounter and any broader failures in recruitment or training remain separate questions for investigation and the courts.