On the night of March 31, María, a 40-year-old Venezuelan mother of four who asked that her last name not be published for fear of government retaliation, was home alone in her two-bedroom Austin apartment. Around 9 p.m., her adult son and daughter, along with her teenage son, had left for a birthday party at a six-bedroom Airbnb half an hour down the road. Then, about 4:30 a.m., she got a shocking message from her daughter on WhatsApp: Her kids had been swept up in a multi-agency police raid. For three days, she didn’t hear from them—and the next six months of her life would be turned upside-down.
In the early hours of April 1, law enforcement agents had arrested three of her kids and more than 40 others outside the rented mansion near the well-off Hays County suburb of Dripping Springs. The participating agencies—the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), and the Hays County Sheriff’s Office—claimed they had busted a suspected gathering of Tren de Aragua, a transnational Venezuelan prison gang that the Trump administration designated a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year. In recent months, Venezuelan immigrants have been accused of gang membership on flimsy or non-existent evidence.
The day after the raid, DPS put out a press release stating that law enforcement agencies at all levels, including San Antonio police, had been investigating “Tren de Aragua (TdA)” for more than a year, and that: “In recent days, the FBI developed intelligence regarding a possible gathering of suspected TdA members or TdA associates in Hays Co.” The agencies’ operation led to both arrests and a drug seizure, DPS said, and prosecutors were evaluating potential charges.
The house to be raided as included in the affidavit for a search warrant (Hays County court records)
Elected leaders chimed in to applaud the operation. “The Venezuela-based prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA)—among the worst groups that have infiltrated the nation—was operating right in the heart of suburban Austin in Hays County, Texas, where I call home,” said right-wing GOP Congressman Chip Roy. Governor Greg Abbott added on X: “Over 40 TdA vicious criminals are now behind bars and off our streets.”
But authorities never offered any evidence that the party attendees actually were Tren de Aragua members. María told the Observer that none of her kids were involved with the gang; four other party attendees also denied any affiliation. DPS and ICE referred questions to the FBI. The FBI did not answer Observer questions, and the Hays County Sheriff’s Office did not respond.
As a result of the raid, ICE arrested 35 people on federal charges of attempted illegal entry, according to a report obtained from DPS, which was previously reported on by the Texas Tribune. Federal court records suggest that none of these charges were actually prosecuted, and interviews suggest arrestees were simply funneled into civil immigrant detention and in many cases deported. Two additional Venezuelan men were charged with felony-level possession of a controlled substance, resulting from traffic stops near the Airbnb earlier in the evening; police say both had left the party location, though one denied this to the Observer. ICE has said nine minors were taken into custody—one of whom was María’s youngest son, who was transferred into the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) shelter system. In the Airbnb, police found two pink pills, 10 bags of pink powder, and a small bag of a leafy substance all believed to be drugs, according to a search warrant inventory, but authorities did not charge anyone with crimes in relation to the substances, according to two prosecutors at the Hays County DA’s office.
Party attendees told the Observer that some friends had rented the Airbnb for three days to celebrate a pair of birthdays. There were beers, arepas, and a birthday cake. They were planning to blow out candles and sing the following day.
Xavier Peña, who briefly deejayed at the party before the beginning of the raid, recalled hearing a voice outside on a loudspeaker around 4 a.m. “Come outside with your hands up,” a voice boomed through a megaphone, he recalled. “It’s the state police.”
María’s 23-year-old son, Eliangel—who has since been deported back to Venezuela and whose last name is being withheld to protect his mother’s identity because they share the same last name—told the Observer by phone that he was asleep that morning when flashbangs woke him up. In a WhatsApp call, he described seeing camouflaged officers outside pointing guns with infrared lasers inside the house.
In ICE detention, “I cried everyday,” he said, knowing how his mother would struggle to make rent without his and his adult sister’s help. He also has a two-year-old daughter, he said, who remains in the United States.
The SWAT-style nature of the April operation has alarmed advocates. “It’s just deeply disturbing, that level of militarization for a raid,” said Karen Muñoz, a Hays County-based attorney for LatinoJustice, a national advocacy law firm focused on civil rights.
Among Muñoz’s concerns is the entanglement of state police with ICE agents—and the use of a drug investigation as a pretense for immigration enforcement. When state police obtained a search warrant at 2:39 a.m. in neighboring Comal County, the probable cause affidavit cited the narcotics obtained during the two traffic stops near the Airbnb in addition to information from an unnamed “cooperating individual” who told police there would be a party at the address.
Antonio Vizcaino González was a passenger in a car stopped for ignoring a stop sign at 8:35 p.m at a 7/11 gas station about two miles from the Airbnb. A DPS officer wrote that Vizcaino González had “Tattoos common with Tren De Aragua membership.” ICE deportation officers arrived, per the DPS report, conducted a pat-down, and found narcotics in his inner waistband (he was later charged with ketamine possession), according to police and court records. He was booked into Hays County Jail at 12:50 a.m. on charges of possession of a controlled substance, soon bonded out into ICE custody, and was deported to Spain (where he was born, though he grew up in Venezuela). Vizcaino González declined an interview request but said in a Facebook message: “All I can tell you is that at that party, no one belonged to a criminal gang. … It was a friend’s birthday party.”
Jeankey Jhonayker Castro Bravo was stopped by DPS at 10:56 p.m. for traffic violations, and a trooper called in ICE after Castro Bravo showed a Venezuelan passport. Castro Bravo, whom DPS also accused in an arrest report of Tren de Aragua affiliation because of tattoos, was then arrested for drug possession. He was booked at 2 a.m. and has been locked up ever since—facing felony ketamine possession—mostly at the Haskell County jail, a West Texas facility that contracts with Hays. At the Haskell jail, Castro Bravo denied Tren de Aragua affiliation and police claims that he had left the Airbnb, saying he was simply driving for DoorDash in the area: “I never arrived at any party,” he said. “I didn’t even know there was a party.” (Two attendees told the Observer they didn’t recognize him from his booking photo.) Marc Ranc, the Hays County prosecutor tasked with the case, told the Observer in mid-September that he was considering dropping the charge because he was still awaiting evidence from federal agents.
DPS has no formal agreement with ICE allowing it to enforce immigration law. When DPS officers executed their search warrant, they asked people to exit the house, funnelling them to immigration agents, who could then question them about their status and detain them, party attendees recounted. Task forces involving federal, state, and local police have long existed, but advocates believe this may cross a line.
On April 1, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement joined federal, state, and local law enforcement partners in an operation in Hays County, Texas, resulting in the apprehension of 47 illegal aliens. They are currently in ICE custody pending immigration proceedings. pic.twitter.com/scz4M9hEUF
— ICE San Antonio (@EROSanAntonio) April 3, 2025
“This level of collaboration, I think, makes the line between federal immigration and state criminal enforcement really, really unclear and murky,” Muñoz said.
Meanwhile, María has been left with a broken life. Eliangel and her 22-year-old daughter were both deported to Venezuela. Meanwhile, her 16-year-old son is still in ORR custody. He hasn’t been released to his mother, she said, because of delays at the Venezuelan consulate in providing a verified birth certificate. She’s struggling to pay her bills without help from her adult kids. For much of the summer, she told the Observer, she was working as a delivery driver in a car without functional air conditioning.
The great irony, she said, is that accusations about Tren de Aragua membership have broken up her family—even though they were victimized by the gang themselves. Nearly a decade ago, outside a baby shower in Maracay, she said gang members pulled up on motorcycles and sprayed bullets, killing one person and wounding another. After that, María and her kids left for Chile, but Tren de Aragua has become active there as well, and in 2022 she came to the States partly to avoid the gang.
“We are scared of them,” María said. “We left our country because of that.”
The post Officials Said They Busted a Tren de Aragua Party. Attendees Beg to Differ. appeared first on The Texas Observer.
