Austin Mother Deported With U.S. Citizen Children

The nondescript Pflugerville ICE facility where Denisse Parra Vargas and her children were held in detention (Photo by Maggie Quinlan)

As has been characteristic of the Trump administration’s deportations, the removal of Denisse Parra Vargas and her three children – two of them U.S. citizens – was a quick and quiet affair. Undocumented immigrants don’t leave much of a paper trail. In America, deportations are about as close as it gets to vanishing without a trace.

Denisse’s family left traces. Passersby filmed the traffic stop that led to their deportation – a white pickup truck hemmed in by state troopers, identifiable by their uniform cowboy hats. Legal advocates say troopers pulled Denisse and her partner over near Dobie Middle School for a minor infraction, possibly expired tags, on April 30. A few days later she and all three of her children were deported to Mexico.

Advocates for the family call it a “disappearance.” Denisse’s own attorney, Cori Hash at Immigrant Legal Resource Center, says she talked to Denisse on the phone Tuesday, May 6, and hasn’t heard from her since.

It’s easy to learn about almost any American – even homeless Americans, and Americans who died before the advent of the internet. Not so with migrants like Denisse, who leave their home country fearing violence and hide in their new country fearing deportation. Undocumented immigrants are just that – undocumented.

Who are the Vargases? A family photo obtained by CBS shows the three little kids hugging, the youngest with his head tilted back, squinting through a peace sign. They are ages 8, 5, and 4, the resource center says. In the photo, they stand with an artificial Christmas tree behind them, and behind that are certificates on the wall – photos in graduation caps and gowns, with words too blurry to make out.

Denisse Parra Vargas and family (Screenshot via CBS Austin / Blurring by The Austin Chronicle)

The latest address we could find for a “Denisse Vargas” in Austin is in a quiet North Austin apartment complex, just off MoPac. Half a dozen Texas flags wave at the entrance, staked into the ground. A handyman who speaks very little English drives around the parking lot in a golf cart with an American flag mounted on it.

We tried to find neighbors who knew the family, but the address listed for Denisse didn’t include a unit, only a building number. Building 10 edges up to the complex’s pool. Each unit there has a small patio area – one with a grill, one with wind chimes, one protected by a Ring camera.

Any of this stuff could belong to them. The family wouldn’t have had much time to pack, and likely didn’t know they’d need to. While Denisse’s partner was taken into custody right after the traffic stop, Denisse was given an ankle monitor and an appointment a month out, according to Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

Denisse was told that if she appeared at all of her future appointments and met other conditions, she would be eligible for a work permit, the resource center claims. Among those appointments would be one for her partner at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in Pflugerville the following Tuesday, May 6. Hash, her attorney, said when she talked to Denisse on Tuesday, “I never imagined that she would be detained and that her U.S. citizen children would be detained by ICE as well.”

All the neighbors who answer their doors at the North Austin complex say people in the complex keep to themselves. One, a retired flight attendant, says she remembers a Hispanic family with three kids swimming at the pool many days last summer. She says she warned the boys not to dive in headfirst, because they could get hurt.

A neighbor with a tricycle parked outside his door has a blond, curly-haired kid hanging on to his arm. He says no, they don’t play with other kids in the complex. How does he feel about the potential deportation of his neighbors? “I mean, we live in Texas. It is what it is.”

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that, years ago, Denisse failed to appear before an immigration judge. Her attorneys say she came to the U.S. in 2016 fleeing domestic violence committed by a former partner. DHS says a judge issued an order for her removal in 2019. Hers is one of several recently reported cases of undocumented mothers being deported with their U.S. citizen children. “The narrative that DHS is deporting American children is false and irresponsible reporting,” the DHS statement says. “Rather than separate their families, ICE asked the mothers if they wanted to be removed with their children.”

Denisse’s advocates deny this. Hash says, “to our knowledge, she wasn’t given the option of finding someone to come and collect or care for her children before being removed.”

Texas Civil Rights Project’s Daniel Hatoum says, as a civil rights attorney, he can’t agree with much that this administration’s DHS says. “However, I do agree with this: The idea that DHS is deporting U.S. citizen children is false and dangerous, because what they’re doing is far worse. DHS cannot deport U.S. citizens. Instead, what DHS is doing 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.”

Leasing office staff said they couldn’t confirm whether Denisse’s family lived in that building by the pool. Her legal advocates could confirm that the family was detained in Pflugerville before being deported to a border town in Mexico.

The Pflugerville ICE facility is new. The government only confirmed its use as a detention center to reporters this spring. The trees planted outside are so fresh and little that they need straps to stand up. It is tucked behind a strip mall where you can buy liquor, vapes, or donuts. The facility is a nondescript warehouse-style construction in suburbia with no obvious signage. Minus the razor wire, it is an aesthetic match to the countertop fabricator around the corner.