Body camera shows federal agent arrest undocumented parent near Austin school

AUSTIN (KXAN) – At 8:16 a.m. on April 30, a group of students waited outside Dobie Middle School in Austin for class to start. School buses were making drop-offs, as Texas Department of Public Safety troopers pulled over Omar Gallardo Rodriguez and a woman he called his wife, Denisse Parra Vargas.

School footage KXAN viewed shows students could see part of the traffic stop that led to federal authorities transporting the couple and their three children – two of whom were born in the United States – to Mexico a week later. 

The traffic stop lasted nearly an hour. DPS body camera video obtained by KXAN shows two troopers walking up to the white pickup truck and explaining, in Spanish, they stopped the couple because of expired plates. Troopers asked the driver, Rodriguez, if he had lived in Mexico and how long they lived in the U.S.

The troopers walked back to their car, and dash camera video shows less than 10 minutes later a federal agent removed Rodriguez from the truck and placed him in handcuffs.

Rodriguez had been deported three times before, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A judge had issued a court order for Parra Vargas to leave the country back in 2019, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The couple explained to officers their oldest daughter had traveled with Parra Vargas to the U.S., but their youngest two children were born in the country. The federal agent asked Parra Vargas where her kids were, and she answered that they were at school.

“I want to take them with me please,” Parra Vargas told the federal agent.

During the traffic stop, the federal agent told the couple they would fit Parra Vargas with an ankle monitor and allow her to pick up her children but instructed her to report to their offices within 24 hours.

“When she comes back tomorrow, they will send them off together as a family – and we won’t prosecute him [Rodriguez] because he has been deported before,” the federal agent is heard saying on body camera video.

DHS said in a tweet, and in a statement to KXAN, it was giving undocumented mothers facing deportation the option to take their U.S.-born children with them or leave them with a designated person – pushing back on assertions the federal agency was deporting children who are U.S. citizens.

The legal team for Parra Vargas and her family said, for many families, it’s an impossible choice.

“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 and country,” Texas Civil Rights Senior Attorney Daniel Hotoum told KXAN on May 9. 

According to DPS officials, the traffic stop was conducted by a regional tactical strike team – and in this case troopers were working alongside a Homeland Security investigator. The state agency has not disclosed why it was operating near the school or if Rodriguez was the target of the strike team operation.

At the start of President Donald Trump’s second presidential term, DHS rescinded a long-standing policy that discouraged immigration enforcement on or near “sensitive locations” such as schools or churches.

Since that policy change in January, Texas school districts have been working to develop guidance for campuses in the event that immigration enforcement officers attempt to enter a school or request specific information about a student.

Austin Independent School District officials have publicly released their guidance for situations in which law enforcement, including ICE, attempt to enter a campus or access student records. The policy includes instructions to call the district’s legal team to review the identification and legal documentation presented.

The district told KXAN it was aware that an Austin ISD parent was detained near the Dobie campus. District officials have not provided details as to its response or review of the traffic stop involving a federal immigration agent.

Investigative Photojournalist Richie Bowes, Producer Santos Gonzalez, Director of Investigations & Innovation Josh Hinkle, Lead Editor Eric Lefenfeld, Evening Anchor Daniel Marin, Assignments Manager Chelsea Moreno, Executive Producer Phill Robb, Producer Jose Torres, and KXAN+ Anchor Esmeralda Zamora contributed to this report.