He was confronted with a possible prison sentence for abuse. He was deported instead.

While President Trump puts his promise to perform massive deportations, American immigration agents hold criminal defendants and deport them before their affairs can move through the courts, causing local legal enforcement officials to frustrate and cause fear among some victims of crime.

The defendants in the middle of their affairs brighten up, denies law to communities and especially the victims, say public prosecutors. They are concerned that the defendants who are deported before their criminal cases are resolved can return to the United States and can commit more crimes.

“There is no level of accountability when someone is deported,” said Ryan Brackley, the assistant officer of Justice in Arapahoe County, Colo, including the city of Aurora. “We want our victims to get the righteousness they deserve. If we have crimes of violence and there are victims of records, we want to be able to keep their perpetrators responsible.”

Mr. Brackley pointed to a recent case that had tried to prosecute his office.

An anonymous tip and a short video clip that was sent to the police in Aurora showed a man on his knees, with blood on his hands and one of his ears-the result, researchers later concluded, beaten from guns.

After a few weeks, the police arrested a suspect in the beating: Yerbis Manuel Garcia-Quintero, a man from Venezuela whom they say they have sold gold and borrowed money to other immigrants, and used violence to collect debts. He was accused of various crimes, including extortion and abuse, which could have sent him to prison for years if he is convicted.

Mr Garcia-Quintero placed bail and was released while his case went to a trial. But then he failed to appear in court in early April for his provisional hearing. Prosecutors assumed that he had fled and was now a fugitive.

But it turned out that Mr Garcia-Quintero could not have been in court. Immigration agents had already deported him, so that he would be unlikely to be charged

For Carlos Perez, the bloody man in the video, the news that Mr. Garcia-Quintero had been deported instead of being forced to be accusations in Colorado shocked him. He said he had moved houses on the advice of the police, who was worried that Mr. Garcia-Quintero would look for retaliation while he was on bail.

Now he fears both the safety of his relatives in Venezuela and his wife and 1-year-old daughter, whom he is worried can be damaged by an employee of Mr. Garcia-Quintero’s in Colorado.

“It would be better if he was in prison because my family is in Venezuela, and that is a lawless land,” said Mr Perez, 41,.

He said he had called in his brother to try to find out if Mr Garcia-Quintero was in custody in Venezuela, or was free and walked through the streets. “He did not pay for the crime he committed,” said Mr Perez. “I am worried every day.”

Throughout the country, the defendants have dropped out of the radar and they do not appear before the court. Only later do public prosecutors learn that immigrants were picked up by immigration and customs enforcement and not returning for the process.

The holding and deporting of the defendants rarely happened, among other things. But Mr. Trump made it usual during his first term of office, according to legal experts. A Study in New York The arrests of 159 courthouse there in 2017, the first year in function of President Trump, compared to 11 in 2016, last year by President Obama.

When President Biden joined, he gave a memo -restricting arrests for the immigration of the courthouse related to national security or if the person was a threat to public safety. Now, under Mr. Trump, such arrests become routine again.

Thomas Homan, the border of President Trump, said that ice officers would be willing to work together with local prosecutors who wanted to take a person in custody for a criminal case. Local officers of justice, he said in an interview, can submit a request to the Regional Ice Office for a suspect who is in custody in immigration removal in custody.

However, he said that ICE will look to pick up people who may be on the union awaiting the process, as in the case of Mr Garcia-Quintero.

“If someone wants to put him on tied, and he is an important threat of public safety, we will pick him up,” said Mr. Homan. “If they want to take him back in custody, they can, but we will not allow him to walk out of the street.”

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said that the agency would “at least make thoughtful decisions and do what will most likely keep the American people safe.”

She said that DHS was holding the defendants responsible for the American criminal courts. But if people are on bail – a standard mechanism to ensure that those who are responsible for crimes appear their court – “we will opt for deportation,” she said. “We think that victims would rather not roam their attackers through the streets of America.”

Kevin Hayden, the public prosecutor of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, including Boston, the actions of ICE, and said that the agency made the community less safe and made it harder to reduce crime.

“The responsibility of my office is to keep perpetrators responsible, to protect justice for victims, witnesses and the larger community.” He continued: “We cannot and will not tolerate ice that hinders our ability to pursue those essential goals for public safety.”

As court buildings come up again as a flash point, some local officials end in the middle of the fight. A Wisconsin Judge Was recently arrested by the FBI, who said she was trying to help a man without papers in her courtroom to avoid federal agents. And Mr. Homan, the border tsar, recently Endanger more arrests of local officials If they stood in the way of the performance of the federal government.

Deborah Fleischaker, who served as a high ICE officer in the Biden administration, criticized the collection of immigrants before their criminal cases were resolved as an inappropriate use of resources.

“Ice has traditionally allowed the criminal justice system to do his work before it takes custody of people,” she said. “But again, this is not about justice. It’s about deportation numbers, regardless of how they get there.”

In the past, competing interests could often be resolved by Interagency diplomacy. But nowadays the relationships between local and federal agencies are more tense, because the Trump government has given priority to the rapid deportation of as many people as possible.

In some cases, local authorities take extraordinary steps to protect current affairs and to keep defendants out of the reach of immigration agents. In Colorado, a man from Honduras was confronted with a crime accusation of Fentanyl with the intention of distributing an arrest in 2023. He was after placing a bond of $ 100,000 – of which he had to pay the court 10 percent – and he had acted his court. But in February he was picked up by Ice after an immigration raid.

ICE brought him to court for his next performance. But the judge was worried that the man, Adan Desiderio Pavon-Andino, would be deported when immigration means decided that they were ready.

So the judge took an extraordinary step, laid a cash bond of $ 500,000 – much higher than the normal bailing schedule and much more than the man could produce. The man has been in the prison of the province since July and awaits the trial – and for now, out of the reach of ICE.

“It’s absurd,” said Giancarlo Small, the man’s lawyer. “The idea that you would make half a million tire in any case, unlike the normal schedule because of the fear they can be deported, violates the whole idea of ​​innocent until he has been guilty and also the purpose of the band.”

The policy of immigration has changed, Mr Small said, but that would not cost his client’s rights. “He placed his band, he came to court, he never missed a judicial date, and now he must be in prison until the trial is afraid that he can be deported.”

Kirsten Noyes contributed research.