HAYS COUNTY — 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.

They decorated a table for a cake and blew up balloons. As the night faded, the kids went to bed and the adults kept hanging out.

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 frie

See Full Page