A US immigration agent has been charged with felony for allegedly hitting a man with a vehicle earlier this month in Texas, a prosecutor announced.
The prosecutor said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Mario Alberto Morales was indicted by a grand jury on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Morales is accused of running over a Mexican national who was living in the US without legal documentation, leaving him with multiple leg fractures and a hip injury.
An ICE spokesperson dismissed the indictment as “nothing more than a political stunt” and described the allegations as “reckless and false”.
If convicted, Morales faces between two to 20 years in prison for the second-degree felony, according to Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare.
Teare said Morales pursued a vehicle driven by Miguel Parra-Hernandez, a 48-year-old Mexican national who has lived in Texas for more than 30 years without legal documentation, on the morning of 10 October.
Parra-Hernandez and another occupant fled the vehicle on foot before Morales “aggressively steered his vehicle” into the Mexican national, Teare said at a news conference in Houston on Friday.
He said Parra-Hernandez had no criminal record and was not subject to a deportation order.
“Not only did he hit Mr Hernandez, he ran over both of his legs, leaving him seriously injured and hospitalised to this day,” Teare said.
Morales then called 911 to report that Parra-Hernandez had hit his car.
Teare said that ICE was allegedly pursuing a man named Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, a Mexican national and undocumented immigrant, who has apparently been dead for nine years.
Getty ImagesImmediately after the incident, an ICE spokesperson told the BBC’s US media partner CBS News that Parra-Hernandez had run in front of the immigration agent’s vehicle.
Following the indictment, ICE rejected the allegations brought by the grand jury – a panel of citizens empowered to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges.
“This is nothing more than a political stunt by Houston sanctuary politicians,” an ICE spokesperson said in a statement to the BBC.
“Allegations that ICE struck Miguel Parra-Hernandez intentionally are RECKLESS and FALSE,” the spokesperson said, adding that the men and women of ICE “are entrusted with upholding the rule of law and are held to the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and ethical conduct”.
The statement added that federal officers acting in the course of their duties could only be investigated by other federal agencies. The spokesperson insisted that local governments did not have the authority to run such an investigation.
District Attorney Teare stressed that he had the utmost respect for law enforcement and believed that undocumented individuals who were violent felons should be deported.
He said he hoped the prosecution would not only deliver justice for Parra-Hernandez and his family but also send “a loud and clear message to every ICE officer who feels that they have a free pass to terrorise our streets”.
