HOUSTON, Texas — Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare says surveillance footage appears to show a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer intentionally striking and running over a man fleeing on foot during an immigration operation in northwest Harris County on October 10, and his office is weighing a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, according to reporting by the Associated Press, NBC News and KPRC 2 summarised by the Texas Gazette. ICE has flatly denied that the strike was intentional.

The man, 48-year-old Miguel Parra Hernandez, a construction worker from Mexico who advocates say has lived in Houston for 34 years, suffered multiple fractures in his right leg, a fractured ankle and an injury near his hip, and has undergone surgery and needs further reconstructive surgery, his attorney and the Houston advocacy group FIEL said. He remains in ICE custody while hospitalised, VisaVerge reported, citing the family and FIEL.

Teare told broadcasters that investigators who reviewed the video reached a similar view to his own — that the striking appeared intentional — and that a charging decision would come in a relatively short order. No charge against the officer has been publicly confirmed as of October 20, and the investigation by the district attorney's office and the Harris County Sheriff's Office is ongoing. ICE, in a statement reported by the AP, said Parra Hernandez ran in front of an ICE vehicle and was struck as officers tried to detain him, and called the allegation that officers intentionally struck him reckless and false.

A second dispute is over whom ICE was pursuing. ICE said its officers spotted Parra Hernandez with a man it identified as its target, Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, and tried to detain both. FIEL told the AP on October 16 that Mendoza-Cervantes was not in that vehicle — a point a district attorney's office spokesperson, Rafael Lemaitre, also told the AP — and that a photo ICE released as the target actually shows Jose Hector Jimenez, who died years ago. FIEL said Jimenez's daughter provided a Mexican government death certificate, which has been turned over to the district attorney. ICE did not respond to the AP's request for comment on that claim on Friday.

For immigrant workers in Houston — including Punjabi and other South Asian families in Texas — the case is being closely watched because it tests both the use of force in immigration operations and whether a local prosecutor will charge a federal officer. Readers should treat both sides' accounts as allegations until investigators release the full video and a charging decision is made.

Sources: Associated Press reporting from Houston, October 16, 2026 (via AP syndication); Texas Gazette summary of District Attorney Sean Teare's statements to KPRC 2, NBC News and KTRK, October 2026; VisaVerge summary of the Harris County investigation and Parra Hernandez's hospital and custody status, October 2026.