DHS says patriarch of Austin family ICE sent to Mexico was deported three times before
AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Department of Homeland Security said on Friday that the patriarch of the Austin family that ICE transported to Mexico, along with their two U.S.-born children, had illegally entered the country three times before and was convicted of multiple crimes while living in Texas.
Omar Gallardo-Rodriguez, 43, and his partner Denisse Parra-Vargas were pulled over outside Dobie Middle School in north Austin last Wednesday over expired tags, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Rodriguez and his partner had just dropped off their school-age children at a nearby school when three troopers in an unmarked vehicle stopped them, according to the family’s legal team. The legal team believes that at least one of the couple’s three children was in the car at the time.
DPS confirmed that their tactical strike team, working alongside Homeland Security investigators, conducted the stop over the expired plates. The agency has not responded to questions from KXAN about why it was operating near the school.
Gallardo, Parra-Vargas and their three children, including the two American minors, were transported across the U.S. border to Mexico on Tuesday, according to ICE, less than a week after the traffic stop.
DHS officials said on X, and in a statement to KXAN, that they are not deporting U.S. children but allowing their mothers to choose “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 agency said Parra-Vargas was taken into ICE custody and “chose to bring her children with her to Mexico.”
“What they are doing is far worse,” Texas Civil Rights Project Senior Supervising Attorney Daniel Hotoum said. “Instead, DHS is taking U.S. citizen children, and telling them and telling their parents that they will be separated unless they give up their home, their country.”
History in the country
According to Austin’s Mexican Consulate, Parra-Vargas entered the United States in 2016 and requested asylum, which was later denied. DHS, in a post on X and statement to KXAN, said the mother “failed to appear before her immigration judge and was issued a final order of removal in 2019.”
ICE officials told KXAN that Gallardo first illegally entered the U.S. near Laredo. The agency said ICE deported Gallardo after identifying him in the Travis County Jail, where officials said he was serving time for assaulting a family member.
The agency said an immigration judge ordered Gallardo removed to Mexico, and he was taken to Mexico in May 2006.
ICE officials said the agency found Gallardo in the U.S. again in 2010 – this time near Hebbronville, Texas, and he was transported to Mexico in February 2010. The agency said Gallardo was found in the Travis County Jail again on Jan. 28, 2013, while serving a sentence for driving while intoxicated, and he was deported to Mexico in March 2013.
‘Now in Mexico’
The family’s legal team told KXAN that on the day of the traffic stop outside of Dobie Middle School, Gallardo and Parra-Vargas were both detained, but Parra-Vargas was released to pick up her children from school. At some point, her attorney said she was given an ankle monitor as part of ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, or ISAP.
According to the family’s legal team, ICE later instructed Parra-Vargas to report to the ICE facility in Pflugerville. Upon that appearance, ICE detained the mother and her three children and, on May 7, 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.”
Immigration Legal Resource Center Senior Staff Attorney Cori Hash, one of the attorneys providing legal support to Parra-Vargas, said she was informed that ICE used private contractors to transport the family from the Pflugerville facility. Hash also said the family was held in a hotel room in McAllen before being transported to Mexico. KXAN asked ICE and DHS about the use of private contractors and has not yet received a response.
On a phone call with reporters Friday, the legal team for Parra-Vargas and her family said they have been unable to contact the family since they were removed from the country. Hash said it was their understanding that the family had been taken to a city just across the Texas-Mexico border.
DHS and ICE have not answered KXAN’s questions about whether the U.S.-born children were appointed a guardian ad litem or any representation during the removal process of their parents.
“What the administration is relying on in these cases, […] is to act so incredibly quickly that steps cannot be taken to stop them from expatriating those children,” Hotoum said.
