{"id":233238,"date":"2026-04-03T09:38:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T09:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/233238\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T09:38:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T09:38:14","slug":"dallas-community-leader-omar-salazar-to-be-deported-after-7-months-in-ice-custody-following-traffic-stop-lawyers-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/233238\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas community leader Omar Salazar to be deported after 7 months in ICE custody following traffic stop, lawyers say"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Dallas community leader and SMU alum <\/a>who has spent the past several months detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after being accused of staying in U.S. illegally following a\u00a0traffic stop last year<\/a> lost his case Wednesday night and will be deported, his legal team confirmed.<\/p>\n

After seven months inside ICE’s Bluebonnet Detention Facility northwest of Abilene, Omar Salazar was told he will be sent back to Mexico, his lawyers and family said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Everyone was very saddened by the decision,” said Jacob Momty, Omar Salazar’s attorney. “They are resilient people, but this is really, really straining them. And, this was a very difficult night.”<\/p>\n

His lawyers said his voluntary departure must happen within 60 days.<\/p>\n

“Today, we received the news we were hoping not to get,” Omar Salazar’s wife, Ella, wrote in a post on social media. “We lost our case. Omar will be sent back to Mexico soon and I will be following him once I am able to get my passport in order. I’m not sure if I will be able to keep things together well enough to finish out the semester at school, but I am glad that Omar and I were finally got to be together like we always planned. This experience has been awful and something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”<\/p>\n

Details of Omar Salazar’s traffic stop and ICE arrest<\/p>\n

In August 2025, a Lubbock police spokesperson said Salazar did not use “a ramp properly to enter the loop” and changed “lanes unsafely.” They said when he was pulled over, he “presented a Mexican ID” and did not have a valid U.S. driver’s license.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, ICE was contacted, and he was arrested.<\/p>\n

The Southern Methodist University graduate was brought to the U.S. from Mexico as a minor, at age 11. He did not qualify for asylum, and he was not eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)<\/a> immigration policy; he missed the eligibility window by just a few months, according to family and lawyers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His legal team says he has no criminal history, and while detained, he married his longtime girlfriend. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In September 2025, CBS News Texas reached out to ICE about Omar Salazar’s case. At that time, a spokesperson said, “ICE officers will not wait for immigration violators to commit a crime before they are detained. For those who violate immigration laws, we are going to apprehend them and remove them.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Attorney calls outcome “a sad day for America” \u00a0<\/p>\n

Omar Salazar’s legal team said that although they can appeal the decision, they are unsure if they will, because that could keep him detained another 8-12 months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since he’s married to a U.S. citizen, Omar Salazar can apply to re-enter the country, but he will most likely have to wait 3-6 years to come back. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“Clearly a bad day for Omar, but a bad day for America,” Monty said. “Omar represents the best of what America and Texas have to offer, and this was an opportunity to keep a family together, and instead, they are\u2026 the family’s gonna stay together, but in Mexico. That’s not the result that should have happened.”<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Dallas community leader and SMU alum who has spent the past several months detained by Immigration and Customs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,16609,430,15750,27,6956],"class_list":{"0":"post-233238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news","11":"tag-deportation","12":"tag-north-texas","13":"tag-smu","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}