EL PASO, Texas ( Border Report ) – A county court-at-law judge on Monday found no probable cause to continue holding 140 migrants at the El Paso County Jail on state riot charges.
The allegations stemmed from a large illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States on April 12 when migrants slit or ripped through Texas’s border wall’s Gate 36 in El Paso. A riot was alleged by a state attorney as a result of 142 migrants pushing one of more than 300 Guard members to “back off” during a demonstration.
At least two additional cases of various arrests on several charges by state officials who have set up obstacles along the river some feet in front of the U.S. have been documented by Border Report ( March 21 and March 24 ). S. borders roof to stop people from entering the country’s ports of entry.
However, a public defender claimed that the arrest affidavits do n’t mention an officer or agent who witnessed them doing it on April 12 or what they did. She claimed that people who had followed the group may not have known what had transpired inside.
El Paso County Chief Public Defender Kelli Childress said,” It’s like someone at the front of a collection at a music gets into a battle with the boy and you assault everyone who was in line.”
El Paso County Court-at-Law No. Judge Ruben Morales claimed that the arrest documents failed to establish possible cause that somebody named in the papers was a part of the mob. He forbade two people from his rule, one of whom was never detained and the other of whom was being held on a misdemeanor charge.
The issue is whether the documents provide the necessary basis for believing that the person whose name is listed has allegedly rioted. Not whether there was a riot, and people were involved in that, or that he was in the group of ( 300-plus ), but that this person took some specific action detailed in the affidavit, ” the judge said in court.
Morales added that while the pub is lower for his decision on the possible cause of the case to keep folks in prison, he could give the prosecution and the defense time to present witnesses and more evidence.
The immigrants would not be walking out of prison, according to Jennifer Lynn Vandenbosch, who represented the position at the hearing, because the federal government has placed multiculturalism subpoenas on all of them for unlawful entry into the United States. They may spend up to another 48 hours in the state prison before the Border Patrol can pick them up.
Childress claimed that the express wants to command a sizable number of migrants crossing the border following the ruling.
One thing to support actual charges is to have mass arrests without possible cause, but that is what we have. What we’re seeing is an effort to get the title, to get it on the information that 142 workers breeched the frontier, and they’re using inflammatory speech that ’s simply not true, ” she said. With the very few resources, we will work very hard against those that are actual injustices as opposed to those that have actual legal proof. ”
After the reading on Monday, Vandenbosch declined to speak with investigators and directed further inquiries to District Attorney Bill Hicks.
She frequently complained in court that the court failed to give prosecutors enough time to prepare, claiming that the state had been given a copy on Sunday night.
