DHS: Suspect in School Bus Rock Attack That Fractured 8-Year-Old’s Skull Is Illegal Alien
“Hernando Garcia-Morales should have never been in this country, let alone released after multiple arrests into New Jersey communities.”
The Department of Homeland Security announced on Saturday that the suspect arrested earlier this month for hurling a baseball-sized rock at a New Jersey school bus, fracturing an eight-year-old’s skull, is an illegal alien from Mexico with a long rap sheet.
The attack occurred on January 7, and two days later, Hernando Garcia-Morales, 40, was arrested at a homeless encampment in Palisades Park by the New Jersey Turnpike State Police for “aggravated assault, resisting arrest and possession of a weapon.”
Separately, the Bogota Police Department charged Garcia-Morales with “aggravated assault, criminal trespassing defiant, criminal trespassing peering, and criminal mischief damage property,” as per Fox News.
He allegedly threw a rock from a New Jersey Turnpike overpass as the students were returning to Teaneck from a field trip to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City.
According to prosecutors, the victim, a third-grade student at the Yeshivat Noam School in Teaneck, “suffered a deep laceration on her forehead and fracture the size of a nickel to her orbital bone.” She underwent surgery, which involved “doctors inserting titanium mesh plates and screws in her head to remedy the severe damage.”
Teaneck Mayor Mark Schwartz told The New York Post that she is “back [at home] and recovering well — and very happy to hear her attacker was apprehended.”
The X post below features Garcia-Morales’ bizarre mugshot and a photo of the broken window where the rock came through.
40-year-old Mexican Hernando Garcia Morales arrested for throwing a rock through a school bus window fracturing an 8-year-old girl’s skull on the New Jersey Turnpike
What the hell is with his mugshot? How much do you want to be he is an illegal? I'll be digging into it tonight… https://t.co/nkc3Xl4Fxi pic.twitter.com/wTbOMKcQTQ
— Wake Up NJ 🇺🇸 New Jersey (@wakeupnj) January 12, 2026
According to The Post, during his arrest, Garcia-Morales told police officers he believed the bus “was the devil or his enemy.”
DHS said they are unaware of the date or the location of his illegal entry into the U.S., but they noted his criminal record spans more than 20 years.
Some highlights from Garcia-Morales’ rap sheet:
In 2006 he was arrested for possession of a weapon and theft, according to DHS. And he was in trouble with the law twice in 2023, the agency revealed, but was not charged in sanctuary state.
On July 23, 2023, Garcia-Morales was arrested for burglary after allegedly entering a building in Hackensack, NJ, DHS reported. Those charges were not pursued. The following day, he was arrested again in Hackensack and charged with giving false information and attempted burglary.
Those charges were downgraded by the Municipal Court of Hackensack on Sept. 20, 2023 and Garcia-Morales walked away with only a 30-day jail sentence and $905 fine for disorderly conduct.
In the 2006 arrest in Hackensack, he was convicted on both charges and sentenced to 330 days in jail, according to DHS.
He is a suspect in several other rock-throwing incidents last year, where cars and cops were targeted, authorities said. He has twice been accused of peeping into homes in Bogota, NJ, according to authorities, NorthJersey.com reported.
Perhaps the most egregious aspect of this case is that, despite his criminal history and illegal status, because of New Jersey’s sanctuary state policy, he was never deported.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement, “Violently targeting a school bus full of children is extremely wicked and heinous. 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,” she said.
Asked for comment on this case, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) — a former Democrat — called the Garden State’s immigration policy “completely backwards.”
Van Drew said, “This is exactly what New Jersey’s sanctuary state policies produce. When state leaders choose to protect people who are in this country illegally instead of enforcing the law, they put innocent Americans directly in harm’s way. And once again, a child is the one paying the price.”
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Literally the face of the illegal alien issue.
Democrats are so proud of him and will work tirelessly to free him. Senators and district court judges are already working around the clock. Mexico and Soros are already busy printing up signs and hiring unemployable ne’er-do-wells for the Hands Off Free Morales rally to be held this week.
from the planet of the meth (v)apes
These asinine sanctuary policies are doing considerable damage in the jurisdictions that implement them with a fair amount of spillover. I’d suggest that the WH get on a conference call with Governors of the sanctuary States and make a last effort to gain cooperation. Not for 287G program where local/State LEO enforcement immigration laws but just to honor the detainer.
If they say no then the consequences are simple. Redirect every Federal LEO in their State to immigration enforcement and nothing else until they round up the worst of the worst in that State. Disband all joint task forces, all discretionary funding all cooperation with local and State LEO. Either they want to work with the Feds or they don’t and the WH will honor their choice. If there’s widespread unrest and violence/intimidation as in Minneapolis then ‘in an abundance of caution for the.safety of Federal employees’ shut down all Federal offices in the County; TSA, FAA, SSA, Postal service, Treasury, SBA…. IOW a localized ‘govt shutdown’ that ends five consecutive days after the harassment of ICE agents does.
Maybe not the post office, because of its independent status, and there may be some other services that are under specific statutory obligations, but all the rest of this, absolutely. The tenth amendment works both ways.
Nah, we can hardly expose our dedicated, professional postal employees to the dangerous conditions in Minneapolis and Hennepin County. Extraordinary circumstances, like days and weeks of organized mob violence and harassment against Federal employees require the temporary interruption of service. /S ?
They already get Martin Luther King day off, when almost nobody else does. So just declare 2026 to be Hernando Garcia-Morales year in New Jersey, and give the postal workers the whole damn year off.
He seems like a nice guy.
Time for the Paul Kersey solution. These monsters don’t need due process, they need a bullet. I don’t know what’s holding Tump back from invoking the Insurrection Act, and sending troops to put down the insurrections in the sanctuary states and cities. Has the cheap labor lobby gotten to him?
Peter Schweizer’s just published book, “The Invisible Coup”, reveals the plan to use migration to transform the US. The chief culprit: Mexico. As pointed out in the introduction, the impact of mass migration from Mexico way exceeds the damage done to the US from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. We used nuclear weapons on Japan, a country that couldn’t invade the US. Yet we allow millions of Mexicans to invade and ravage the US. Mexico has over 300 Consulates. Most countries have less than five. These Consulates are coordinating the chaos we see in the sanctuary cities and states. Read the book. Vote against the Democrats and RINOs supporting the destruction of the country.
Most sanctuary cities/states don’t have insurrections going on. We only focus on the ones that do.
And this incident has no connection to any insurrection.
Also, this could just as easily have been a home-grown crazy person. The incidence of this level of craziness is probably lower among illegal aliens than among the native-born, because it takes a certain amount of engagement with reality to come here.
Not if they SENT him here BECAUSE he was crazy.
Yeah, maybe there were many others they sent who didn’t survive the trip, but we have no way to count them and they don’t matter. We still have to deal with 100% of the ones who made it.
We’re stuck with our own crazies. We don’t need to import them
Oh, God. Pushing the lie that because a crime COULD have been committed by a citizen, it doesn’t matter that it was committed by an illegal. The fact is HE committed the crime. If he was where he belonged, a child in the US would not have been the victim.
Of course it’s a fact that he did commit this crime. It’s equally a fact that it’s at least as likely, and probably more likely, that a citizen would commit it. He didn’t do it out of wickedness, he did it because he’s completely nuts, and has no grasp of reality. There are more US citizens than illegal aliens who fit that description. So the fact that this time it happened to be an illegal alien is a mere coincidence.
There are more US citizens than illegal aliens who fit that description.
_____________________________________________________________
please….pure conjecture / bullshit
You’re always ready with an answer – usually some lawyerlese bull crap – you’re arguing that this ILLEGAL is only doing the job that AMERICANS usually do?? That’s what I’m reading! Let’s look at this INTELLIGENTLY – IF he WASN’T HERE then he could NOT have done what he did! THIS incident would NOT have happened and a little girl would have a NON-INJURED head! Oh, unless YOU could assign an insane leftist to do the job! How much do you make for your “answers” to EVERY article? Oh, what’s that I hear? The microwave just dinged – your Hotpocket is ready!
no grasp of reality leads to wicked actions so stop defending him on that count
and you saying if he didnt do the crime some legal citizen would have….what??
you mean throw the rock that hit the child??
thats a substantial loss of credibility there for you
When something is completely indefensible, here comes Milhouse to take up it’s cause–and to disparage the US at the same time.
Weren’t you leaving?
I believe we’re headed in the Kersey direction.
I believe the reason Trump is not invoking the Insurrection Act is this is an election year. Nothing more, nothing less.
He didn’t invoke it in 2020, when he should have, and we saw how that worked out.
Yes, an OBVIOUSLY STOLEN ELECTION! Maybe the great and wise Milhouse can explain where 81 MILLION votes originated and where they went!
Hernando Garcia-Morales
Another bright and shining light embraced by blue hair wine swilling AWFULs.
Perhaps these women will gladly invite Hernando Garcia-Morales into their homes with their children to live. After all, don’t they deserve to reside in the US girls. Well…. don’t they?
Or does that only include neighborhood which you don’t live?
“What? Me Terrorize?”
He (ain’t) got a purty mouth.
That’s just your next democrat hero, doing what they brought him him for.
PRIME example why we need to have agreements with other Nations to keep THEIR citizens in THEIR prisons! Send this scum back home to serve his 20 years in a Mexican prison! We’ll take back any US Citizens to keep in Our Prisons!
There’s no guarantee that those other countries won’t let them go when they get home but hey, that’s their problem. If they want violent criminals on their streets that’s none of our business as long as they keep them in their country. Better to have him taking up their tax dollars than ours.
Must have gotten sidetracked. He was headed to the farm to pick cabbage.
Typical Democrat