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Critical Views of Judges and Attorneys
Our research and interviews with judges and attorneys provide additional evidence of an
increased focus on prosecuting unauthorized immigrants with minor criminal histories.
Magistrate Judge Philip Mesa in El Paso, Texas, who has spent 18 years presiding over
illegal entry and reentry cases, told Human Rights Watch, “The people who before would
have been prosecuted as misdemeanors are now being charged as felonies. Any who
[would have gotten] voluntary return are now being prosecuted for misdemeanors.” 54 Judge
Robert Brack in Las Cruces, New Mexico, who estimated he has sentenced defendants for
felony reentry in over 11,000 cases, said in the majority of the cases he sees, “They have
absolutely no criminal history.” 55 Judge Sam Sparks in Austin, Texas, issued a court order
in 2010 demanding that the US Attorney’s Office provide “substantive reason(s)” why each
of three illegal reentry defendants “without any significant criminal record” should be
prosecuted, given the “mind boggling” costs. 56
Defense attorneys reported a similar pattern. Milagros Cisneros, an assistant federal defender
in Phoenix, said that when she began 11 years ago, the majority of her clients were charged
with illegal reentry after a prior aggravated felony conviction. Now she sees mainly people
with lesser felony convictions or no felony convictions at all. 57 In El Paso, Texas, assistant
federal defender Edgar Holguin similarly observed that 10 years ago, he only saw
prosecutions of people with prior criminal convictions, but in the past 5 years, he increasingly
sees people whose only prior convictions are for immigration offenses. 58 He said, “Clients
used to ask, ‘Why am I getting so much time?’ Now they ask, ‘Why am I getting time at all?’” 59
54 Human Rights Watch interview with Magistrate Judge Philip Mesa, El Paso, Texas, September 26, 2012.
55 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Judge Robert Brack in Las Cruces, New Mexico, April 25, 2013.
56 United States v. Juan Ordones-Soto, 2009-CR-590; United States v. Ignacio Ontiveros-Vasquez, 2009-CR-592; United
States v. Angel Hernandez-Garcia, 2009-CR-597, Order, February 5, 2010. Notably, since the appointment of Robert Pittman
as US Attorney for the Western District of Texas, the number of illegal reentry prosecutions has dropped 46 percent from a
year earlier. According to the Austin-American Statesman, “[Judge] Sparks said in recent months that he has sentenced
mostly undocumented immigrants who have serious criminal histories—not ones he had seen in recent years who did little
else wrong besides return to the United States to work.” Steven Kreytak, “Prosecutions of immigrants in Austin down,”
Austin American Statesman, September 29, 2012, http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/prosecutions-ofimmigrants-in-austin-down/nSPjS/
(accessed April 12, 2013); and Steven Kreytak, “Federal judge questions immigration
prosecutions,” Austin American Statesman, February 6, 2010, http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/federal-judgequestions-immigration-prosecutions-1/nRkNB/
(accessed April 29, 2013).
57 Human Rights Watch interview with Milagros Cisneros, assistant federal defender, Phoenix, Arizona, April 2, 2013.
58 Human Rights Watch interview with Edgar Holguin, assistant federal defender, El Paso, Texas, September 25, 2012.
59 Ibid.
33 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | MAY 2013