A McAllen city commissioner and his wife are still facing charges in the case.

A federal magistrate judge has dismissed the charges against nearly a dozen people who were rounded up during a "massive" immigration operation targeting ropa usada -- or used clothing -- warehouses in South Texas earlier this month.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Juan F. Alanis found that federal prosecutors had failed to meet the probable cause burden necessary to sustain the charges against nearly half of the people who were taken into custody during the operation in south McAllen on Thursday, October 2.

Federal immigration officials arrested dozens of people, including a sitting McAllen city commissioner and his wife, who own and operate Oro Ropa Usada. While Rodolfo "Rudy" Castillo and his wife, Bertha, face goods smuggling and money laundering charges, many of the other people arrested during the raids were charged with visa fraud -- for unlawfully and fraudulently working in the United States after entering the country using B1 or B2 visas. Such visitor visas do not authorize people to work in the country. However, defense attorneys for the foreign nationals successfully argued that the government got the law wrong when it filed the visa fraud charges against them.

"The government, in its aggressive push to prosecute people for immigration-related matters, they picked the wrong statute, and they misapplied that statute to the facts that they had," David Lindenmuth, a federal-prosecutor-turned-defense-attorney, told MySA on Monday. Lindenmuth is serving as a court-appointed attorney for two of the foreign nationals whose charges were dismissed last week.

"The court agreed with the argument that defense counsel made and dismissed quite a few of the complaints -- I think at least 11," he said.

At issue was whether the defendants had committed fraud when obtaining the visitor visas and the meaning of the words "applied" and "application." From the prosecution's perspective, the foreign nationals allegedly committed visa fraud each time they entered the country with a visitor visa since they later allegedly obtained employment within the United States. The government argued that each entrance into the country counted as an "application."

But the defense argued that the statute prosecutors relied upon makes it illegal to knowingly forge or counterfeit a visa or to make a false statement in order to obtain a visitor visa. None of the complaints against the 11 dismissed defendants claim they forged documents or lied when applying for their visas, under which they were lawfully present in the country.

"Assume that everything (prosecutors) put in their complaints is accurate. The law still does not apply to those facts," Lindenmuth said.

However, the 11 defendants may face different charges in the future. Many of them continue to be held in federal custody, something the defense attorney described as "unusual" since they aren't currently facing criminal charges. Lindenmuth also characterized the severity of the now-dropped charges as unusual as well. Had the cases continued under those charges, the foreign nationals could have faced anywhere from five to 15 years in federal prison. It was an outsized potential punishment compared to the defendants' alleged actions.

"I am disappointed that the government would charge these people who they believe just to be trying to work ... under such serious statutes," Lindenmuth said.

Why a judge tossed charges from massive South Texas ICE raids