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We Are One Species.Accountability Is Coming.

Cordova 2028 ·

We are one species. We are one people. And there will be accountability.

By Vincent Cordova · Cordova 2028: Moving Forward Together

Poster: We Are One Species. Accountability Is Coming. A construction worker looks skyward beside surveillance footage from a Houston parking lot of an SUV bearing down on a running man, the agent’s body-camera quote, an ICE agent facing the U.S. Capitol, and the commitments of a Cordova administration
Campaign design team

On October 10, in a Houston parking lot, Miguel Parra Hernandez was running. He is 48 years old, a construction worker who has lived in Harris County for more than 30 years. According to the Harris County District Attorney, he had no deportation order and no criminal record.

OCT 10   HOUSTON, TXREC

An unmarked ICE vehicle went over a median after him. Surveillance video shows the SUV bearing down on him as he ran away. Moments later he was on the ground, holding his leg and crying out in pain. His leg was broken. He is still in federal custody, in a rehabilitation facility.

The agent's own body camera recorded him saying:
“I was coming in and I hit him with the car.”

That agent is Mario Alberto Morales. On October 30, a Harris County grand jury indicted him for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The deadly weapon was his government vehicle. Today, he surrendered to the court. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

  1. Oct 10

    Struck by an unmarked ICE vehicle in a Houston parking lot. His leg is broken.

  2. Oct 30

    A Harris County grand jury indicts the agent for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

  3. Nov 2

    The agent surrenders to the court. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

He is presumed innocent, and he will get his day in court. That is more than Miguel Parra Hernandez got in that parking lot.

The Story ICE Told

ICE

Parra Hernandez stepped in front of the car.

The District Attorney

The video contradicts that.

ICE

They were hunting Jose Mendoza-Cervantes.

The facts

His own daughter says he died in 2017.

ICE says Parra Hernandez stepped in front of the car. The District Attorney says the video contradicts that.

ICE says agents were hunting a man named Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, and that he had been seen with Parra Hernandez. Parra Hernandez's family had never heard of him. Mendoza-Cervantes's own daughter says her father died in 2017.

The District Attorney says the Department of Homeland Security has refused to cooperate with his investigators, and he accuses ICE of destroying evidence, either intentionally or through gross negligence. ICE's answer is that local prosecutors have no authority to investigate federal officers at all.

And this is not the first time. In July, an ICE officer in Houston shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in his van. DHS says he "weaponized his vehicle." The other passengers dispute that. The same District Attorney says DHS ignored his requests for information then too.

Read that again. An agency chased a man who did nothing, for a target who may have been dead for nearly a decade, put him in the hospital, told a story the video does not support, and then said no one outside the agency has the right to ask questions.

That is not one bad agent.

That is a system built to protect itself.

A Pastor. A Hispanic Man. And It Still Happened.

Morales's own attorneys have told the court and the press that he is an ordained Christian pastor, a man who, in their words, "devoted his life to God and Jesus." He is also Hispanic. The man he ran down is Mexican.

Let that sit for a moment.

The same Creator a pastor preaches about from the pulpit created Miguel Parra Hernandez. Breathed life into him the same way. Loves him the same way. You cannot claim to serve the Creator while running down His creation in a parking lot. No badge, no uniform and no quota changes that. Every person in this country who claims faith, and every person who claims none, should be able to agree on this much.

And understand what his heritage tells us. This is not about one group of people turning on another. Morales and Parra Hernandez share a heritage, a language, maybe even a hometown story. It happened anyway.

That is the proof: the problem is not who a person is. The problem is what a system allows.

Any one of us, of any color and any faith, can be turned into an instrument of harm when an institution teaches us that some human beings do not count, and that no one will ever answer for it.

One Species

99.9%

the same DNA

Every human being on this planet shares about 99.9 percent of the same DNA. There is no biological line between the agent and the man on the ground. There is no line between the citizen and the immigrant, between the person with papers and the person without.

Borders are lines we drew. Humanity is not.

We the People

Our Constitution already knows this. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments do not say "no citizen" shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. They say no person.

The founders chose that word. We are going to honor it.

What Accountability Will Mean
in a Cordova Administration

I am not going to promise accountability and leave it as a slogan. Here is what it means.

  1. 1

    Federal prosecution when the evidence supports it.

    The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division will investigate excessive force by federal immigration agents under 18 U.S.C. § 242, the same law used against local police officers who abuse their power. A federal badge will not be a shield.

  2. 2

    No more stonewalling.

    DHS will be ordered to preserve all evidence, turn over body-camera footage, and cooperate fully with state and local prosecutors. The claim that federal officers cannot be investigated by the communities they operate in ends on day one.

  3. 3

    Faces and names.

    Agents conducting routine enforcement will display a visible name or badge number. No masks. The people of this country have a right to know who is acting in their name.

  4. 4

    Cameras on, always.

    Body cameras will be mandatory in every enforcement action. Missing or destroyed footage will be treated as misconduct, not a technical problem.

  5. 5

    A vehicle is not a weapon.

    Clear rules on pursuits and use of force: no driving vehicles at people on foot. Violations mean removal from duty.

  6. 6

    Real oversight.

    An independent inspector general with the power to investigate and the duty to publish every use-of-force incident. A national registry so an agent fired for abuse cannot be quietly rehired somewhere else.

  7. 7

    Hiring standards that mean something.

    Morales was brought on in a hiring surge in August 2025, and the District Attorney has said no agency he knows of would have hired him. Speed will never again outrank screening.

  8. 8

    A path to justice for victims.

    I will ask Congress to give every person harmed by a federal officer the same right to sue that exists against state and local officers today. Right now, that door is nearly shut.

Accountability Is Not Vengeance

Let me be clear about what this is and what it is not. Accountability is not a mob, and it is not a headline. It is due process, applied to everyone. Agent Morales will have his trial. He deserves a fair one. So did Miguel Parra Hernandez deserve fair treatment that day. So does every person ICE encounters.

Most people who wear a badge do not want to work beside someone who drives at a running man. Accountability protects them too. It protects the badge itself.

A government that will not hold its own people accountable has decided that some lives are worth less than others. My administration will never make that decision.

We are one species.

We are one people.

And there will be accountability.

I am a piece of the collective essence of this world that never gives up and needs every other piece to be whole.

— Vincent Dean Cordova, Jr.

Cordova 2028: Moving Forward Together

cordova2028.com · info@cordova2028.com

Sources

  • Associated Press, "ICE officer has been charged after striking a man with a car in Houston" (Oct. 30, 2026)
  • States Newsroom / Texas Tribune (Oct. 30, 2026)
  • NBC News (Oct. 30, 2026)
  • KHOU 11 Investigates (Oct. 31, 2026)
  • Houston Public Media, "Indicted ICE agent surrenders himself in Harris County court" (Nov. 2, 2026)

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Vincent Cordova · Candidate for U.S. President 2028

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