The first immigrants arrested in Gov. Greg Abbott’s border crackdown have served their time. Federal officials will decide what happens next.

For over three hours each of the men – all from Venezuela – pleaded guilty to entering private property in Del Rio last month. Each was sentenced to 15 days in prison for the offense they served in the Briscoe Unit, a prison that was recently converted into a state prison for immigrants by order of the governor.

Their state cases are now closed, with the men instead having to wait up to two days to see if U.S. immigration and customs officials would take them into federal custody. A prison spokesman said ICE officials picked up the nine men Thursday morning.

It is still unclear what will happen now that the migrants are under federal jurisdiction. As the judge repeatedly stated at Wednesday’s hearing, criminal convictions can have repercussions on the immigration process.

“A confession of guilt or a Nolo candidate for the defendant’s defense can lead to deportation, exclusion from entry to this country or refusal of naturalization under federal law,” warned Sergio Gonzalez, judge of the Val Verde District Court, of each defendant in the virtual hearings .

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However, according to Kat Russell, an attorney at RAICES, a Texas nonprofit that provides legal services to immigrants, immigration authorities have a lot of power over their next steps.

“You could just release them and ask them to report to the city they will be living in at a later date, or they could send them to custody,” she said.

If arrested, they could also be released or quickly deported on asylum applications with immigration guarantees, she said, although she doubted the latter, as the men are all Venezuelans and their homeland is in need. ICE officials did not respond to questions about the immigrants.

The indictments, during which the defendants hear the charges against them and present a plea, were the latest experiment in what is essentially a new Texas criminal justice system for immigrants accused of illegally crossing borders. Although illegal crossing is a federal crime, an increasing number of immigrants on the Texas border seeking asylum from troubled countries and an ongoing feud with the federal administration resulted in Abbott dispatching hundreds of state police and Texas National Guard personnel to to arrest migrants on state charges.

On Thursday, around 20 other detained migrants will be brought before Gonzalez, the only judge in Val Verde county to deal with offenses as well as family, youth and civil cases. And its case numbers are growing rapidly, with up to 20 new immigrants sent to Briscoe prison in one day.

Since Abbott’s assignment began last month, the Val Verde County Sheriff has said more than 230 migrants have been incarcerated at Briscoe Prison in Dilley, a small town between Laredo and San Antonio. Since last week, all migrants have been accused of intruding into private property, often in the immediate vicinity of the Rio Grande.

More than 150 of these arrests took place in Del Rio, but Gonzalez has only scheduled two more trials for immigrants arrested on Abbott’s orders. The next group of imprisoned immigrants are not due to appear for their first appearances in court until September or November, Gonzalez said last week.

“It’s a whole new world,” he said. “My goal is to make sure these things flow and see where they go and see what the numbers are.”

Police have also arrested dozens of migrants in neighboring Kinney County, but a prison spokesman said those detainees had not yet appeared in court.

Abbott, a Republican candidate for re-election next year, has this summer focused on tightening border policies, accusing Democratic President Joe Biden of “dangerous and ruthless open border policies”, according to a spokesman.

“While the federal government is doing nothing, Texas is building a border wall and arresting illegal migrants caught trespassing,” Abbott wrote on Twitter last week. “No more catch & release.”

The Del Rio region has seen an increase in border crossings by asylum seekers from countries torn by a combination of violence, political unrest and economic crisis. Nearly 150,000 immigrants were arrested by federal officials in the region between October and June, most from Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela and Haiti. That is around 40,000 in the entire previous year.

In Val Verde County, local officials admit that there is a crisis in which there is a lack of transportation, shelter and other resources for the incoming immigrants. However, the move to arrest those who do not enter the main crossing points has sparked outrage among immigrant rights advocates.

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Following Wednesday’s hearing, Laura Peña, legal director of the Racial and Economic Justice Program at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said she was closely monitoring the federal government’s next move.

“The big question is to what extent the Biden government is complicit in these state efforts to usurp federal immigration law,” she said. “We know that they are already complicit because they are already issuing ICE prisoners. What now?”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas also argued that the arrests could undermine people’s constitutional right to asylum in the United States. Typically, immigrants arrested on crossing the border are turned over to federal immigration authorities, who either deport them or allow them to remain in the country if an asylum application is pending. Officials from the Texas Department of Public Security have not said whether state soldiers are arresting those who say they are seeking asylum.

In small border towns, the rise in law enforcement has also created confusion as federal, local, and state authorities intertwine.

In Del Rio, local law enforcement officials said DPS had told them that state police would only arrest men who crossed the border without families. But Texas Tribune journalists witnessed a Venezuelan being separated from his wife last month, and the district attorney counted at least three other arrests of immigrants who were later told by lawyers that their client had been separated from a wife, sister, or parent. before he was arrested by the state police.

“From day one, DPS gave us explanations that this was not going to happen and I definitely made it clear to them that I didn’t want any help with family separation,” said Val Verde District Attorney David Martinez, who Cases of misdemeanor prosecuted.

Martinez said he had either turned down or planned to turn away cases where he learned the detainee was separated from the family, but Peña argued at the time that the damage had been done.

“The whole system will be armed against newly arrived asylum seekers,” she said.

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