In the early hours of April 1, state and federal police raided a party at an Airbnb in a wealthy Austin suburb, arresting nearly 50 people including nine children. 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’d busted a gathering of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua but offered no substantiating evidence.
ICE arrested 35 of the individuals on charges of attempted illegal entry, but federal court records suggest none of the charges were prosecuted—as arrestees were simply funneled into civil detention and in many cases deported. The only state criminal charges to result from the raid, according to prosecutors at the Hays County District Attorney’s Office, were two felony drug possession cases against Venezuelan men who were stopped while driving near the Airbnb earlier in the evening.
Now, the Hays DA has dropped both drug charges, citing a lack of cooperation from federal law enforcement.
Marc Ranc, a Hays County assistant criminal district attorney, told the Texas Observer he dropped the cases last month because ICE would not confirm whether or not they had additional evidence for the cases. “I didn’t get any of what I thought should have been given to me by the feds,” Ranc said. “They never communicated with me. Nothing.”
Ranc said an investigator in his office asked ICE for evidence like video footage or incident reports but never got a reply. Ranc didn’t believe he could prosecute the drug charges and comply with Texas discovery laws. Both defendants have now been deported.
“Everyone whom ICE arrested was found to be illegally present in the U.S. and taken into ICE custody pending immigration proceedings,” an ICE spokesperson told the Observer. The agency said the raid was an “FBI-led operation” and referred the Observer’s questions to the FBI and DPS. DPS declined to comment; an FBI auto-reply indicated the agency would not respond until the federal shutdown ended.
Advocates say the Hays County raid is an example of police accusing Venezuelans, without evidence, of gang ties under the Trump administration.
“All the evidence we have seen suggests that this had nothing to do with gang enforcement—no one was arrested on any charge remotely related to gang activity,” said Andrew Case, supervising counsel at LatinoJustice, in a written statement. “It appears that DPS simply raided this house because the people throwing a party were Latinos from another country.”
The two men who faced the state drug charges were Antonio Vizcaino González and Jeankey Jhonayker Castro Bravo.
Vizcaino González was a passenger in a car stopped by DPS for ignoring a stop sign. ICE agents then arrived and found narcotics in his inner waistband. He was charged with ketamine possession but bonded out into ICE custody and, being a dual Venezuelan-Spanish citizen, was deported to Spain in May. “We are hardworking people, nobody at the party was a criminal,” Vizcaino González told the Observer. “We were just immigrants trying to get ahead and celebrating a friend’s birthday.”
Castro Bravo, a 24-year-old barber from Caracas, told the Observer he was stopped while driving for DoorDash in the area and was unaware of the party (though police say he had left the party location). After he showed a Venezuelan passport, a DPS trooper called in ICE. DPS accused him in an arrest report of Tren de Aragua affiliation because of his tattoos, and he was arrested for drug possession. Castro Bravo was held in jail—primarily in Haskell County—for six months before the felony ketamine case against him was dropped in October. Castro Bravo also denies any gang affiliation.
State police cited the drugs found on Vizcaino González and Castro Bravo in the probable cause affidavit for the warrant to raid the Airbnb.
Castro Bravo told the Observer that he was deported back to Venezuela two weeks ago. His mom greeted him outside the family house in tears.
Back home, Castro Bravo is happy. His friends visit, and he’s eating arepas, a food he missed in jail. He hopes to open a barbershop again soon. As for his time in Texas—spent far away from family and economically struggling prior to his arrest—Castro Bravo said, “I don’t want to remember this experience.”
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