U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has placed a detainer on an illegal alien who allegedly injured an 8-year-old girl in New Jersey.
Hernando Garcia-Morales, a Mexican national with an extensive criminal history living homeless at a park in Bergen County, allegedly threw a rock at a school bus on the New Jersey Turnpike, smashing a window and striking the young girl. She received traumatic head injuries that required surgery.
“Violently targeting a school bus full of children is extremely wicked and heinous,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a
statement on Monday. “Hernando Garcia-Morales should have never been in this country, let alone released after multiple arrests into New Jersey communities. ICE has lodged an arrest detainer against this monster, and we hope New Jersey’s sanctuary politicians will help us keep him off American streets for good. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, criminal illegal aliens have no place in the U.S.”
According to the press release, citing local news reports, a school bus was returning from the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City along the New Jersey Turnpike near the town of Teaneck. Garcia-Morales allegedly threw a rock at the school bus, which smashed through a window and struck the girl—a student at Yeshivat Noam Jewish day school in the town of Paramus—in the head.
Northjersey.com reported that the girl suffered a nickel-sized fracture to her orbital bone and a gash on her forehead. The injuries required her to have surgery to remove bone fragments and install a metal plate in her head. She also had her right sinus removed, and her eyes were swollen shut.
According to a Facebook post from the
New Jersey State Police, Garcia-Morales was arrested at Old Croaker County Park in Teaneck, at a self-made campsite where he was apparently living. He was charged with aggravated assault, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, endangering the welfare of a child, criminal mischief, resisting arrest by flight, and hindering; he was detained in the Bergen County jail.
Garcia-Morales has a history of these types of attacks: he had eight complaint warrants for throwing rocks and 21 additional charges—including aggravated assault, criminal trespassing, and criminal mischief-damage property—in the nearby town of Bogota. On multiple instances in 2025, he was alleged to have thrown rocks at police officers and vehicles and evaded capture numerous times.
DHS further reported that he had been arrested in 2006 for possession of a weapon and theft, and again for burglary in 2023. It was not known when he entered the country.
