Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare told NBC News on Tuesday, October 13 that it was “pretty obvious” an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer intentionally ran over 48-year-old construction worker Miguel Parra Hernandez in Texas last Saturday. Teare said federal authorities were refusing to cooperate with local investigators and may have allowed critical evidence to be erased.
“My viewing of it, and many other investigators that have viewed it as well, it’s pretty obvious that this was an intentional striking and running over of the person by the vehicle, and in that case, that is an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in Texas,” Teare told NBC.
Teare said investigators had obtained additional video beyond the footage already circulating publicly. The vehicular assault left Parra Hernandez with multiple breaks and fractures, according to his attorneys. He remains hospitalized in ICE custody.
Teare said the federal government was not cooperating with his office and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. While the injured worker remains under guard, the agency responsible for running him over is obstructing the investigation.
According to Teare, investigators wanted to preserve and download potential crash data from the Jeep Cherokee that struck Parra Hernandez, including information about its speed, steering and braking. ICE refused to consent. While investigators were preparing a search warrant, an ICE agent drove the vehicle away, potentially erasing evidence.
Teare also revealed that two people detained in a separate operation were already in the back seat of the ICE vehicle when it struck Parra Hernandez. Both remain in ICE custody.
Cesar Espinosa, co-founder and executive director of the immigrant rights organization FIEL Houston, told the Associated Press that Parra Hernandez “had a surgery for the injury under his knee and now we’re waiting for swelling to go down in his ankle to be able to have a reconstructive surgery on his ankle.”
Espinosa said two ICE agents were in Parra Hernandez’s hospital room when he visited. The worker has lived in the United States for 34 years, according to Espinosa.
Parra Hernandez’s attorneys and family say he has no criminal record and was heading to work applying stucco when ICE agents in unmarked vehicles pursued him. Espinosa said Parra Hernandez did not know who was chasing him.
“They have to stop pulling people over just because they fit a description. Just because they might seem like the person. Just because they’re driving a white truck on their way to work,” Espinosa said during a Wednesday press conference. “When I grew up, that was called racial profiling, and that is what’s happening today.”
ICE claimed its target was Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, whom it identified as the driver of the vehicle, alleging that he had a final removal order and a criminal record. However, Parra Hernandez’s attorney Kim Bruno and Espinosa said neither Parra Hernandez nor the man accompanying him had any association with Mendoza-Cervantes.
Houston Public Media reported that a search of court records found no criminal cases involving Mendoza-Cervantes in either Dallas County or Harris County. ICE did not immediately explain the apparent absence of those records.
Five days after the vehicular assault, federal officials continued to defend the ICE thug, maintaining the lie that “Miguel Parra Hernandez ran in front of an ICE vehicle and was struck.”
“Allegations that ICE struck Miguel Parra Hernandez intentionally are RECKLESS and FALSE,” an unnamed ICE spokesperson declared in a statement Tuesday. The denial contradicts the surveillance footage, which has been viewed by millions, and the assessment of local investigators.
During Wednesday’s press conference, Miguel’s brother Rodolfo Parra requested that he not be moved from the hospital, “because he is in a delicate state of health, and that we’re still continuing to fight for justice.”
The attack recalls the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father, husband and construction worker murdered by ICE in Houston on July 7. Like Parra Hernandez, Salgado Araujo was on his way to work when federal agents pursued him. Neither worker was the original target of the operation against him.
While Teare considers charges in the attack on Parra Hernandez, federal agents continue to assault and kill workers with little consequence. More than three months after Salgado Araujo’s killing, no charges have been announced against the agents involved, including Gregory Feathers, whom the Texas Tribune identified as the shooter.
The Democrats, no less than the Republicans, bear responsibility for ongoing wanton ICE violence. They provided key votes for passage of the anti-immigrant Laken Riley Act as well as procedural votes to ensure ICE and Customs and Border Protection received billions in funding through the end of the Trump administration.
In a CNN Town Hall Wednesday, Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico reiterated his support for the immigration Gestapo. Asked by CNN if he supported abolishing ICE, Talarico quickly replied, “No, and I never have.” The Democrat added, “We need immigration and customs enforcement in this country.”
Since Trump’s return to the White House, the immigration Gestapo has shot at least 25 people. More than 55 have died in ICE custody, and hundreds, if not thousands, have been brutalized by federal agents and for-profit prison guards.
The only social force capable of securing justice for victims of the immigration Gestapo is the working class, united on a socialist basis and politically independent of both capitalist parties. Their border regime divides workers by nationality and immigration status, pitting them against one another in a race to the bottom for the benefit of the capitalist class.