AUSTIN (KXAN) – Immigration and Customs Enforcement sent a mother and her three children, two of whom are U.S. citizens, to Mexico following a traffic stop last week near Dobie Middle School in north Austin, according to multiple sources, including the Texas Civil Rights Project and Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
A Texas Department of Public Safety trooper assigned to a strike team alongside Homeland Security conducted the traffic stop over expired plates, according to DPS. The agency said during the stop, the driver, Omar Gallardo Rodriguez was identified as an illegal immigrant and referred to ICE.
TCRP and ILRC told KXAN they have provided legal support to Rodriguez and his family. ILRC’s senior staff attorney, Cori Hash, said Rodriguez’s partner, Denisse Parra-Vargas, and their children were in the car at the time of the traffic stop outside the school.
The legal team for the family and Austin’s Mexican Consulate Carlos Enrique González Echevarría, told KXAN ICE sent Rodriguez, Parra-Vargas, and their three children to Mexico following the incident. The couple has one child who was born in Mexico, but their two younger children are U.S. citizens.
González Echevarría said authorities learned “that back in 2016, [the mother] entered the U.S. requesting asylum, which was later denied, and she was instructed to abandon the United States as soon as possible.” He said he believed the woman then stayed in the U.S. and later gave birth to two other children, “apart from her firstborn, who was born in Mexico.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a tweet Parra-Vargas failed to appear before her immigration judge and was issued a final order of removal in 2019.
“Rather than separate their families, ICE asked the mothers if they wanted to be removed with their children or if they wanted ICE to place the children with someone safe the parent designates,” the tweet said generally about detained families. “In this case, when [Parra-Vargas] was taken into ICE custody, she chose to bring her children with her to Mexico.”
Congressman Greg Casar, an Austin Democrat, told KXAN in an interview on Thursday that ICE and other law enforcement agencies should focus on solving crimes and reducing violence, instead of “[pulling] over families for having expired tags.”
“Let’s not be deporting U.S. citizen children, and let’s use our federal law enforcement resources like ICE on real safety threats, not on separating families and making our communities worse off,”
KXAN also reached out to Sen. John Cornyn’s office and did not provide a comment.
González Echevarría said details he obtained from ICE indicate the family’s truck had expired Nevada plates. Rodriguez was detained at that time and sent to a nearby ICE facility, according to ILRC. González Echevarría said his colleague spoke with Rodriguez at the facility last week, where “he was in good health.”
That same day, sources said Parra-Vargas was “fitted with an ankle monitor and released … to allow her to pick up her minor children from school.”
“ICE now instructed her to appear with her children at their offices the next day, to proceed with her removal, allowing her to leave with a GPS tracker,” González Echevarría said. The family’s TCRP legal team confirmed this “ankle monitor” was part of ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, or ISAP.
ICE later instructed Parra-Vargas to report to the ICE facility in Pfluvgerville, according to the family’s legal team. Upon that appearance, ICE detained the mother and her three children, two of whom, attorneys say, are U.S. citizens and later sent them to Mexico.
“She followed [ICE’s] instructions and appeared at their facilities, where they started the removal process,” González Echevarría said. “She was deported through McAllen-Reynosa and is now in Mexico.”
Grassroots Leadership, a non-profit focused on incarceration and deportation issues, provided a photo of what they say is the family deported by ICE. KXAN is not revealing the children’s identity.
“Once again [U.S. Customs and Border Control] and ICE are using zero tolerance,” said TCRP’s senior supervising attorney, Daniel Hatoum. “It’s harming children – this time U.S. children, too.”
ILRC told KXAN that ICE did not allow communication with close family members who were willing to keep the children during the detainment. DHS has not addressed that claim publicly.
“ICE was informed by the family and legal advocates that the children were U.S. citizens and ICE knowingly deported them anyway,” ILRC Senior Staff Attorney Cori Hash said in a statement.
DHS tweeted that the Trump Administration is giving parents who are in the country illegally the “chance to take full control of their departure and self-deport.” In an interview with NBC News Tom Homan talked about the government’s strategy when it comes to deporting parents in mixed-status families.
“It’s not okay to enter this country illegally. It’s a crime, and you think that being here illegally, you choose to have a U.S. citizen child — that’s on you,” Homan said. “On those cases this weekend, the mother asked for her children to go with her, and that’s what we did. If we didn’t do it, you’d be asking right now about family separation.”
Federal, state orders
The Austin Independent School District confirmed that a parent was detained near the school. District officials said they do not have additional details since the incident occurred off campus. DPS verified the stop occurred in the area near Dobie Middle School, but noted its troopers were not on school grounds. The family’s legal team said the troopers were in an unmarked vehicle.
In January, AISD issued guidance to staff on how to respond if federal immigration officers come to any of its campuses. The guidance came just days after the new Trump administration threw out a long-standing federal policy protecting sensitive areas, like churches and schools, from ICE raids – part of ramped up enforcement efforts across the country.
At that time, AISD Superintendent Matias Segura issued a statement saying the district recognizes the “emotional toll” such moves could have on students, families and staff.
“For many in our community, these are not just policy discussions, but deeply personal issues that can create uncertainty and fear,” Segura added.
According to the district’s website, Dobie Middle’s School’s student body is more than 80% Hispanic. Last month, ICE told KXAN its “enforcement resources are based on intelligence-driven leads and ICE officers do not target persons indiscriminately.”
Also in January, Gov. Greg Abbott asked DPS to deploy tactical strike teams to “support the Trump Administration’s homeland security operations to locate and arrest criminal illegal immigrants in the state.”
Abbott said then in a press release that Texas was expanding operations to assist Trump’s hard and fast efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.
“Today, I directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to deploy tactical strike teams to work alongside our federal partners to enforce immigration laws throughout the state,” Abbott said in the release. “These teams will coordinate with Homeland Security agencies to track down the thousands of illegal immigrants with active warrants across Texas and deport them from our country.”
DPS further confirmed that the incident near Dobie Middle School was part of those “regional tactical strike teams” developed at the governor’s direction.
“These teams are made up of DPS Troopers from the Texas Highway Patrol, Special Agents from the Criminal Investigations Division and Texas Rangers. Teams are also supported by DPS’ Intelligence and Counterterrorism and Aircraft Operations Divisions,” a DPS spokesperson said to KXAN in a statement.
KXAN has reached out to the governor’s office multiple times since learning of this incident and is awaiting a response. We will update this if one is received.
David Barer and Nabil Remadna contributed to this report.