A Texas District Attorney on Tuesday raged at a judge after numerous migrants who were seen on video breaching the border were released.
El Paso District Attorney Bill Hicks criticized an order from Magistrate Judge Humberto Acosta, that released migrants due to claims prosecutors were not ready to proceed with detention hearings.
Hicks explained that he spoke with the judge and wanted to avoid several hearings on Easter Sunday and his office requested a reset of those hearings, hoping to move them into the week.
He said that while the district attorney’s office was not prepared for trial, it was ready for bond hearings.
“I was very surprised on Sunday when Judge Acosta asked by assistant District Attorney if we had the cases in our office. That is completely irrelevant to whether or not we were ready to proceed on a bond hearing,” Hicks said. “We are not ready to go to trial on these cases … but that is irrelevant to being prepared for a bond hearing. We were prepared for the bond hearings.”
“The judge summarily denied all of the motions to continue in one motion, in one hearing … we categorically deny that the state was not ready to proceed,” Hicks added.
HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP/Getty Images
Last month, videos shared on social media captured large groups of migrants attempting to breach the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas.
“BREAKING: A riot just broke out here in El Paso. Hundreds of migrants decided they had enough of TX National Guard returning them to Mexico and rushed the border wall here,” Jennie Taer of the New York Post wrote on X, formerly Twitter, showing the video of the migrants.
Taer shared another video on X and said, “This is the moment when TX National Guard became overrun by migrants rioting to get across the border here in El Paso today.”
Acosta over the weekend ordered the release of hundreds of migrants that were arrested in the incident, saying that the District Attorney’s office was not prepared for detention hearings.
“It is the ruling of the court is that all the rioting participation cases will be released on their own recognizance,” the judge said in his ruling, according to the El Paso Times.
Michael Cuccaro, executive director of El Paso County Council of Judges said in a statement to Newsweek that “In accordance with statutory procedure, these persons were brought to the Jail Magistrate Court of El Paso County for the purpose of determining probable cause for arrest, informing persons of the accusations and their rights, to determine indigency, and other matters.”
“All individuals allegedly involved in the March 21 border breach had federal detainers filed by [ICE] to have them returned to its custody once released from state custody. Each individual released from state custody and who is subject to a detainer from ICE are held to give ICE time to take custody for deportation proceedings,” the statement added.
Newsweek reached out Hicks’s office via email for further comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.