Within an hour, that decision was upheld by two federal judges in the same Salt Lake City courthouse.

At a detention hearing before Alba, prosecutor Michael Kennedy said the release would put the four into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which alleges they are in the country illegally. The agency would then "in all likelihood" deport the workers, putting them out of reach of prosecution, according to Kennedy, an assistant U.S. attorney.

Using a fishing analogy, he described the ICE procedure as "catch and release."

Defense attorneys responded that the workers have ties to the community and want to fight the charges against them.

Ron Yengich said his client, Juan Chavez-Alvarado, has been at the Swift & Co. plant for a little more than a year, cutting rectal bones off cows eight to 10 hours a day. Chavez-Alvarado, who made $12.25 an hour, never missed a shift and wants to stay in the United States, he said.

"These people are coming here to do jobs that American citizens don't want," Yengich said.

Vanessa Ramos, representing the other three men, disagreed that they would be deported if released into ICE custody. "I think they're good candidates for release," she said.

Alba said he found the prosecution argument "incredulous." He questioned why ICE - which carried out the raid - would deport the defendants after asking the U.S. Attorney's Office to prosecute them.

Kennedy, however, insisted that prosecutors have no authority over ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, and requested that Alba postpone the release so he could appeal that decision.

The magistrate refused, and reaffirmed his order that the four be released to the halfway house, where they will be under 24-hour-a-day supervision. Alba said the government had failed to produce enough evidence that the men would not appear for future hearings.

The four are among 15 workers detained in a Dec. 12 raid who were charged with federal crimes, along with two non-employees who are accused of providing some of them with the identification documents of U.S. citizens. Thirteen of the 17 appeared in court Thursday and pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Three of the workers already had been released by ICE on humanitarian reasons pending trial and will be issued a summons to appear in court. The other defendant among the 17 facing federal charges is a fugitive.

Magistrate David Nuffer released one Swift worker pending trial and ordered the other eight defendants who appeared in his courtroom Thursday held pending trial. Prosecutors did not appeal the release of that one worker, saying she does not face a minimum mandatory sentence of two years if convicted, as the four men do.

The other four defendants appeared before Alba. Immediately after the magistrate made his ruling, Kennedy appealed to U.S. District Judges Dee Benson and Paul Cassell. The two jurists sat side by side on the bench - Cassell is the trial judge for one defendant and Benson heard the cases for the other three - as both sides repeated their arguments.

Kennedy said keeping the defendants in Utah jails would be convenient for them.

The spaces in local jails set aside for immigration defendants are full and if released to ICE custody, the men likely would be sent to a facility in Arizona, he said. Then they would have a bond hearing before an immigration judge. And because the average bond amount is $7,500 and the men probably could not come up with the money, they would remain in the Arizona facility, far from their lawyers, Kennedy said.

In response, Yengich said, "Well, I've paid my phone bill. The gentleman can call me collect."

Benson and Cassell, in separate decisions, upheld Alba's ruling.

pmanson@sltrib.com

Charges and possible sentences

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, backed by local law enforcement, conducted raids on Dec. 12 at Swift & Co. plants in six states as part of an identity-theft investigation. Nationwide, about 1,300 people were picked up. In Utah, the U.S. Attorney's Office says 154 people were detained. Fifteen Swift workers and two non-employees suspected of selling identification documents of U.S. citizens have been indicted by a grand jury in Salt Lake City. The 15 Swift employees are charged with various counts of aggravated identity theft, which carries a two-year mandatory minimum prison term that must be served consecutively to any other sentence; use of unlawfully obtained documents for employees, up to 10 years behind bars; use of false identification for employment eligibility verification, five-year maximum; identity theft, 15 years; and false use of a Social Security number, five years. In addition, some are charged with unauthorized re-entry of a deported alien, which has a maximum punishment of between two and 20 years in prison, depending on prior felony convictions. The defendants accused of selling documents - Veronica Carrillo, 41, of Logan, and Eleuterio Gutierrez, 48, of El Paso - were indicted on two counts each of sale of citizenship papers and aggravated identity theft. Punishment for the sale charge is a maximum 10-year prison term. Gutierrez, a U.S. citizen, is a fugitive believed to be hiding in Texas or Mexico. Twenty-two others picked up in the raid in Utah are being prosecuted on state charges, such as forgery, by Cache County officials. Authorities also are considering presenting another 57 cases for possible state prosecution. ICE will handle the cases of immigrants who are in the United States illegally and have no serious previous crimes on their records administratively, deporting them to their home countries.