Months after detaining 47 people accused of being Tren de Aragua in Hays County, authorities offer no evidence of gang ties

In late March, a group of Venezuelan relatives and friends, celebrating a pair of birthdays, rented a six-bedroom house in the southern tip of Austin with a pool and stunning views from every window of Texas' Hill Country.

Suddenly, at about 5 a.m. the next morning, the group heard explosions from flashbangs, followed by shouts from law enforcement yelling commands to get out of the house, according to interviews with two attendees.

"We all started shouting that there were babies - 'Babies, there's babies,'" recounted a 30-year-old Venezuelan man, who said he was at the house to celebrate the birthdays of his son, who turned 5, and his best friend, who turned 28.

"They were like bombs, like boom," he said of the disorientating devices.

A cadre of Texas and federal authorities arrived as part of an operation that resulted in the apprehension of 47 people including nine minors - at least one as young as 3 - though it is not clear whether all were at the party. The authorities later claimed they had busted a gathering of members and associates of Tren de Aragua, a violent gang that began in a Venezuelan prison before extending to other parts of Latin America.

But two months later, authorities have yet to provide any evidence that the more than three dozen people they arrested that night have connections to the gang.

The actions have worried experts who see a troubling pattern of the government violating due process.

-------------------------
You can't spell "HATRED" without

"RED HAT"

Fascism has come to America, and as foretold, it is wrapped in the American flag and proclaiming it's patriotism.

-------------------------
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

Denis Diderot

Gang members are terrorists and terrorists allow us to declare a state of emergency and use the constitution to light our dynamite.

-------------------------

"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.