Harris County DA says ICE moved witness in auto-pedestrian incident to Port Isabel before he was flown to Mexico

Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said ICE moved a witness in the Houston auto-pedestrian incident involving Miguel Parra Hernandez to the Port Isabel detention center before the witness was flown to Mexico. Teare said his office requested an interview after learning the witness had been moved more than 300 miles south. The incident happened on October 10, 2026, when an ICE vehicle struck Parra Hernandez on Clay Road in northwest Houston after a pursuit.

Teare said his office interviewed the man who was detained in the backseat of an unmarked ICE vehicle when an agent struck Parra Hernandez. "We were the only law enforcement that ever spoke to him," Teare said.

The district attorney's office sent an investigator to interview the witness after learning he had been relocated. "We notified ICE the second we were made aware of them that this individual is a material witness [and] we need to speak to him," Teare said. "The interview for us ended at about 8 p.m. that night. He was on a plane sent to Mexico by 1 o'clock the next morning."

ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding why the witness had been relocated to Port Isabel.

Parra Hernandez suffered a broken leg and was still receiving treatment as of Friday, according to his family. DHS said Parra Hernandez was the passenger of the vehicle ICE had been pursuing.

A DHS spokesperson said ICE agents were conducting a "targeted enforcement operation in Harris County to arrest Jose Mendoza-Cervantes," who the agency said was driving the vehicle and fled the scene. The spokesperson said the incident is under an active internal investigation and the officer involved has been suspended.

"Allegations that ICE struck Miguel Parra-Hernandez intentionally are reckless and false," the spokesperson said. "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."

Teare said the case may be "even more egregious" than the Lorenzo Salgado-Araujo case. Salgado-Araujo was shot and killed by ICE agents in early July during another targeted enforcement operation in which he was not the intended target.

In the Parra Hernandez case, Teare said his office has not yet seen the ICE agent's body camera footage and has not confirmed whether cameras were turned on during the incident. Body camera footage from the sheriff's office confirms the ICE agents were wearing body cameras.

FIEL Houston, a local civil rights organization, said Friday it had been contacted by the daughter of the man ICE was allegedly searching for the day Parra Hernandez was struck by an ICE vehicle. According to FIEL, the man ICE was looking for had been dead for nine years.

"The biggest shock came on Wednesday afternoon when the daughter [of] alias Jose Cervantes Mendoza came forward, who we now know his name is Jose Hector Jimenez Mendoza," Caesar Espinosa, the executive director of FIEL, said at a press conference Friday. "She called our office sobbing because she saw her dad's picture all over the news, all over the ICE website and saying that they were looking for her dad."

Espinosa said Jimenez Mendoza died "at the hands of" U.S. Customs and Border Protection while attempting to cross into the U.S. The organization said the daughter provided a Mexican death certificate showing that Jimenez Mendoza died in Laredo in October 2017.