A community leader and Southern Methodist University graduate who was taken into ICE custody last August will not be allowed to stay in the U.S.
An immigration judge this week denied Omar Salazar's bid to cancel his removal from the country but granted him voluntary departure to Mexico.
Salazar has been detained at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility since he was pulled over for a routine traffic stop while driving in West Texas and was detained by immigration enforcement.
He and his wife, Ella Salazar, had been waiting since February for an immigration judge to issue a decision in his case.
“Today we received the news that we were hoping not to get,” Ella posted on social media Tuesday night. “We lost our case. Omar will be sent back to Mexico soon and I will be following him once I will be able to get my passport in order.”
She described the experience as “awful" and something she “wouldn’t wish on [my] worst enemy.”
His legal team had argued Omar Salazar’s removal from the U.S. would be a hardship to his wife, who is a U.S. citizen. The two married in November; she said she’s only been able to hug him once since.
Ella told KERA she was the one who had to share with Omar that his application to stay in the U.S. had been denied. She said they had been expecting the news.
"His first thing was to make sure I was OK," she said. "But I know he did take some time to just sit with the decision before calling other people to tell them."
For months, community members and activists rallied behind Omar, a former SMU Hunt Scholar. They encouraged supporters to write letters to lawmakers and wrote letters to Salazar to keep his spirits up.
Salazar was brought to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 11 years old and has no criminal history. In his order, Judge Matthew Andrasko wrote that "the Court finds [Salazar] has demonstrated he has been a person of good moral character for the ten-year period preceding this application."
Salazar’s final hearing began on Jan. 30 with Judge Abdias Tida presiding; it was rescheduled to continue testimony and Andrasko took over as judge. Arguments concluded on Feb. 11.
Andrasko, a former military lawyer who was appointed by Attorney General Pamela Bondi as a temporary immigration judge in October, did not allow court observers during the virtual hearing.
Last week, one of Salazar’s attorneys, Veronica Franco Salazar, told KERA she was frustrated over the delay in the decision.
“The judge had told us at the end of our hearing that because he had just taken over the case from the initial judge that he would need about 10 days to get a position back to us because he needed to review all of the previous testimony,” Franco Salazar said. “We reached out to the court several times and left messages with the judge.”
She attributed the delay due to administration backlogs in the immigration courts “because of the amount of people being detained, and the amount people that are overloading the system.”
Ella Salazar said she and Omar are trying to remain optimistic about their future plans in Mexico.
"One of the first things he said was that he's really excited to get to see his grandparents again," she said, "so he's definitely trying to find the light in this."
Priscilla Rice is KERA’s communities reporter. Got a tip? Email her at price@kera.org.
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