ICE deports Austin woman and her U.S. citizen children, immigrant advocates say
Austin immigration activists are raising concerns after they say two U.S. citizen minors were removed to Mexico Wednesday alongside their mother, an immigrant without legal status who had resided in the city for at least seven years.
Denisse Parra Vargas, 37, was detained a day earlier along with her 9-, 5-, and 4-year-old children after reporting to a Department of Homeland Security facility in Pflugerville for a check-in, according to activist Sulma Franco with Austin-based Grassroots Leadership.
Parra Vargas' two youngest two children were born and raised in Austin.
'They were good people,' said Franco, who has known the family for years. 'They were people who were doing all that they could to provide for their families, responsibly, without trouble.'
Texas Civil Rights Project lawyer Daniel Hatoum said he had confirmed that Vargas and her children were in Reynosa as of Wednesday afternoon. Franco said she had heard they were at a shelter, hoping to reunite with the children's father, who was deported to Nuevo Laredo in the days before Parra Vargas' deportation. The couple is originally from Mexico.
The deportation of Parra Vargas and her children appears to be the latest instance of the Trump administration removing U.S. citizen minors amid its ongoing immigrant crackdown.
Last month in Louisiana, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed a four-year-old with Stage 4 cancer after stopping the child, its mother and others. In South Texas, immigration officials also removed four U.S. citizens, aged 6 to 15, along with their parents. One of the children had brain cancer while another had a heart disorder.
'They basically tell the family: 'Either take them with you or we're going to separate them quickly from you,'' said Hatoum, whose organization is representing the South Texas family. 'They then claim that's not really a deportation because they were given the option of going. But it certainly is in a colloquial sense.'
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for comment about this case.
Parra Vargas' arrest came days after immigration officials questioned her and her partner at a traffic stop near Dobie Middle School in North Austin's Rundberg neighborhood on Thursday, according to Grassroots Leadership spokesperson Maria Reza. During that encounter with law enforcement, Parra Vargas' partner, Omar Gallardo Rodriguez, was arrested and deported back to the couple's native Mexico within days, while Parra Vargas was given an ankle monitor, Reza said.
Hatoum said he believes Parra Vargas went to the Pflugerville facility in part because she believed it would help her partner's case.
'There is some level of gamesmanship to this,' Hatoum said.
It's unclear if Parra Vargas or her partner had a deportation order, or if they either had any criminal history or previous record under immigration detainment. According to Reza, Parra Vargas had a pending asylum case.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: ICE deports Austin woman to Mexico alongside her U.S. citizen children
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