Video shows traffic stop near school that led to ICE sending family to Mexico
AUSTIN (KXAN) – The Texas Department of Public Safety on Wednesday released body camera video showing the moment troopers and federal agents pulled over an undocumented couple in April in front of an Austin middle school.
Federal authorities transported Omar Gallardo Rodriguez, his partner Denisse Parra-Vargas, and their three children, two of whom were born in the United States, to Mexico within a week after the traffic stop.
Video shows Rodriguez being taken into custody following the traffic stop on April 30. Body camera footage shows a masked federal agent telling Parra-Vargas they planned to place an ankle monitor on her, after which she would have 24 hours to pick up her children and report back to federal authorities.
'When she comes back tomorrow, we'll send them all together as a family, and we won't prosecute him since he has been deported before,' the federal agent is heard saying to a trooper who was translating to Parra-Vargas and Rodriguez in Spanish.
KXAN also obtained a 56-minute dashcam video of the interaction through a public information request to the DPS. The dashcam video has no audio.
The dashcam video begins as troopers follow Rodriguez's white truck from the intersection of Middle Fiskville Road and East Rundberg Lane to Dobie Middle School's campus.
DHS says patriarch of Austin family ICE sent to Mexico was deported three times before
DPS officials said the traffic stop was initiated over expired plates. It's unclear when troopers signaled for Rodriguez to pull over, but the video shows he parks near the back of the school.
Video shows that the stop occurred in the middle of the school's morning drop-off as school buses were pulling in and out. The family's legal team said Rodriguez and Parra-Vargas had just dropped off their school-age children at a nearby school when they were stopped.
The first interaction shown is between two troopers and the couple while they are still in the truck. It lasts less than four minutes before the troopers walk away. Less than 10 minutes after the troopers walked away, footage shows a federal agent walk toward the vehicle and arrest Rodriguez.
According to ICE, Rodriguez had been deported three times before. The agency said he was jailed in Travis County for family violence in 2006 and again in 2014 after his third charge of driving under the influence.
DPS officials said it was Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's regional tactical strike team that conducted the stop alongside Homeland Security investigators. The agency has not answered whether Rodriguez was the target of an operation or if his arrest was the result of an operation in the area.
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According to her legal team, Parra-Vargas was denied asylum after coming to the country in 2016. The DHS stated that a judge ordered the mother of three to leave the US in 2019.
For over 30 minutes, the video shows the couple making phone calls before officers hand her a piece of paper and escort Rodriguez away. The video shows staff working inside the school, approaching law enforcement briefly, and taking pictures of the scene.
DHS told KXAN Parra-Vargas was taken into ICE custody and 'chose to bring her children with her to Mexico.' The video DPS provided doesn't show Parra-Vargas being detained. At the end of the video, Parra-Vargas is waiting next to her family's white truck.
The family's legal team said 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.
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'She followed [ICE's] instructions and appeared at their facilities, where they started the removal process,' Austin's Mexican Consulate Carlos Enrique 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 on May 9, 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.
The legal team has not provided an update to KXAN on the whereabouts or well-being of the family.
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.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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