While guilty pleas and convictions for identical and similar offenses were going down around him across the nation as he mulled his ruling, Tennessee Eastern District Court federal Judge Harry S. Mattice Jr. stopped two illegal aliens – one of whom had previously been deported – as they were about to enter the guilty pleas they’d planned to enter.

What the two men - Juan Luis Dardon-Canelo and Andres Loarca-Reynoso - were prepared to plead guilty to earlier this week was using phoney Social Security cards to get employment at a Pilgrim’s Pride poultry processing plant earlier raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. But Mattice stopped the two men before they could enter their pleas, declaring they might not technically have broken the law, explaining that a Social Security card is not necessarily a form of legal identification. He told the two defendants’ lawyers they should reevaluate whether guilty pleas are appropriate.

“I’m not sure you can base this charge on a false Social Security card,” Mattice said at the hearing, pointing to another case in which a federal judge dropped a similar charge against Tyson Foods because of a loophole in US immigration law.

With successful convictions having already been obtained elsewhere in the nation, and many other federal criminal cases hinging on the use of fraudlent Social Security cards pending, federal prosecutors and other federal officials are shaking their heads at Mattice’s stunning ruling, wondering just how seriously his decision will affect outstanding cases. ....