The attorney noted the San Antonio operation reminded him of when a former client with no ties to criminal groups, was rounded up in Austin at a birthday party.
SAN ANTONIO — A multi-agency law enforcement operation in San Antonio over the weekend concluded with the arrests of 140 people suspected of being undocumented, according to federal officials with a new, regional Homeland Security Task Force.
The hours-long operation involving local, state and federal law enforcement unfolded early Sunday near San Pedro Avenue and Basse Road, where authorities claim they disrupted activity suspected of being linked to a Venezuelan gang.
By Monday afternoon, the small lot where the operation unfolded had been largely cleared with food trucks and abandoned cars removed, and no one on-site willing to speak about what happened.
Federal officials confirmed that the individuals detained were from Honduras, Mexico, Venezuela and other South American countries. The Homeland Security Task Force South Texas (HSTF-South Texas) in a press release noted the operation was aimed at putting a stop to activities of Tren de Aragua, a violent gang with roots in Venezuela.
But immigration attorney Carlos Castaneda is somewhat skeptical whether everyone who was taken into ICE custody was truly associated with Tren de Aragua.
“As a practical matter, I find it near impossible that over a hundred gang members were hanging out in the wee hours of the morning just out there,” Castaneda said.
Castaneda said the situation reminds him of an April roundup in the Austin area involving one of his former clients. In that case, he said authorities alleged Tren de Aragua members were present.
“In which a birthday party was raided by dozens of law enforcement officers and literally dozens of individuals including my former client were arrested,” Castaneda said.
His former client, he stressed, had an active asylum case and no ties to criminal organizations. Castaneda also pointed out the challenges of obtaining certain bonds for individuals since the Obama administration.
“Months afterwards, the law enforcement agencies involved in that operation did not provide any significant evidence showing that the vast majority of individuals at that party were in anyway involved in criminal activity or linked to gang membership through friends or family or in any other way,” Castaneda said. “She (former client) had, and many other people have, been deemed legally ineligible for an immigration bond,” Castaneda said. “I will note that even during the Biden and Obama administrations, immigration bonds tended to be harder to obtain than a criminal bond.”
Meantime, federal officials say their new task force is designed to target transnational criminal groups while improving community safety across South Texas.