In March, the Trump administration raided what they called a Tren de Arauga gang gathering in Texas, arresting dozens of people at five in the morning.
Two months later, The Texas Tribune reports that none of the people they arrested had any gang ties or even criminal records, and that the “Tren de Aragua gathering” they busted was in fact a birthday party. Forty-seven people were arrested in total, including nine children, although it’s unclear if every person taken in was at the birthday party.
The ICE agents and Texas police who raided the birthday party even went so far as to attack the families with flash grenades, scaring them and their children.
“We all started shouting that there were babies—‘Babies, there’s babies,’” said one of the arrested men, who said he was celebrating the fifth birthday of his son and the 28th birthday of his best friend at a house they rented for the weekend. “They were like bombs, like boom.”
ICE also profiled one of the party attendees for his tattoos, based on a thoroughly debunked theory that Tren de Aragua members have specific ink.
“They told me to my face: ‘You know what those stars mean? Those stars are styled by gangsters in your country,’” he told the Tribune. “I said, no. I got these stars when—no kidding—I was starting to leave adolescence, started working. I got them because I liked them and I wanted to get them.”
While ICE has refused to name the detained Venezuelans, the Tribune identified 35 of them. Some were in ICE detention for weeks and were released with ankle monitors. One of the children was even kicked out of school due to missing too many days in detainment. Again, none were charged criminally.
“This is about something much bigger. If it happens to a person who is accused of being a (gang member) today, tomorrow it could happen to you and me,” said Migration Policy Institute director Muzaffar Chishti. “And if the alleged member of this gang does not have the right to contest [charges against them], how can you know I’ll have it? The next person will have it?”
ICE has been putting innocent people through hellish, traumatic arrest events for months now, as Trump, border czar Tom Homan, and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller march blindly ahead with trying to deport as many people as they possibly can, truth be damned.
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