Guadalupe Alvarez (shown), 42, and Bernardino Fuentes-Espinoza, 35 were arrested by Wheat Ridge police on charges of human smuggling. A week ago, Wheat Ridge police arrested two alleged "coyotes," men who are accused of smuggling nine illegal immigrants into the United States.

Guadelupe Alvarez and Bernardino Fuentes-Espinoza are each being held on $25,000 bail, but that could change today, when Jefferson County District Attorney Scott Storey may have to dismiss charges.

The problem with such cases across the state is that the people being transported who could corroborate the allegations may have been deported or have simply disappeared.

Under a year-old state law that makes human smuggling a felony, the witnesses can't be held unless they also committed a crime. And without material witnesses, prosecution is difficult.

Bernadino Fuentes-Espinoza, 35, (shown)and Guadelupe Alvarez, 42, were arrested by Wheat Ridge police on charges of human smuggling. "They're here today and gone tomorrow," Storey said of those who pay coyotes for transport into the country. "The frustration I feel is that it makes this office look negligent if we have to dismiss because we can't move forward."

Detention limited

The judicial process from making an arrest to going to trial takes time, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement can't indefinitely hold people being smuggled in federal custody so they can be witnesses, said regional ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok.

"If we have aliens in ICE custody and the DA wants to file charges, the DA files a writ for those aliens," Rusnok said. "We want those charges to go forward before they are deported, but it has to be made in a timely manner."

There is a balancing act between removing illegal immigrants from the country and working with law enforcement, said Rusnok, adding, "We're out for the same goal."

Summit County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert, who has had three such cases, said the dilemma calls for working more closely with federal officials and perhaps amending the new state law to allow detention for 48 hours to give prosecutors at least a little time to get depositions from the victims.

Hurlbert, whose district covers Summit, Lake, Clear Creek and Eagle counties, dismissed charges in one human-smuggling case in January because ICE deported the witnesses 12 hours after the incident.

"Since then, we've been trying to work with ICE," Hurlbert said. "The feds can hang on to them; we can't."

Troy Eid, U.S. attorney for Colorado, said that in each case, "it's extremely important there is the possibility of a federal charge no matter what the state law provides" because federal law is tougher.

State-federal cooperation

For the past several months, Eid and Adams County District Attorney Don Quick, who is president of the Colorado District Attorneys' Council, have been working on a joint protocol to better coordinate federal-state efforts in such immigration situations.

A draft document draws on similar federal-state partnerships developed for gun prosecution and calls for law officers and prosecutors to contact ICE so the U.S. attorney's office is notified quickly.

"It's not an easy fix," Quick said, "but we're trying to use whatever tools we can."

Eid also has deputized assistant DAs in Jefferson, Mesa, El Paso, Denver, Jefferson and Summit counties as special U.S. attorneys to better coordinate prosecution.

A case in point involves a van crash in December in Idaho Springs on Interstate 70 in which four people were killed.

Hurlbert dropped state charges against Jose Francisco Franco-Rodriquez and handed off the case to federal prosecutors, with one of his deputies working with the U.S. attorney's office.

There is a "significant investigation," Eid said, with details "still unfolding."

Smuggling, Eid added, "is increasingly common, and we all really have to jump on it."

Staff writer Ann Schrader can be reached at 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com.

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