On July 15, 2008, federal agents and state police swept through six Rhode Island courthouses and arrested 31 suspected illegal immigrant janitors — from Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil, Honduras and Mexico — as they arrived for their evening shifts.

The raids stoked a public outrage that had erupted months before when Governor Carcieri announced a crackdown on illegal immigration in Rhode Island. Under pressure, Carcieri had named a panel to monitor “unintended consequences” of his order. The fact that the raids occurred while the panel held its first meeting further stirred the pot.

The state’s Roman Catholic bishop referring to a “toxic atmosphere” that cast “a pall of fear” over the immigrant community, called for a moratorium on the raids.

The fallout still reverberates. Immigrant advocates say the raids destroyed families and traumatized children. Civil rights advocates allege increased racial profiling by police. Though the raids are no longer headlines, the governor’s panel members heard testimony across the state that underscored lasting fear among immigrants, legal and illegal. But opponents of illegal immigration say the raids have had a deterrent effect.

The state has hired different contractors to clean its buildings, at greater cost. Criminal investigations into the two companies that hired the workers have ended, one with a prosecution, and one, apparently, without charges. For the third year in a row, immigration legislation has languished in the General Assembly.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is taking a new direction.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has temporarily halted the massive workplace round-ups around the country that were a cornerstone of Bush administration policies — including a 2007 raid on a New Bedford factory. She has also ordered a ramp-up of employer prosecutions as opposed to going after illegal workers first.

In April, President Obama said he was looking for “a more thoughtful approach than just raids of a handful of workers, as opposed to, for example, taking seriously the violation of companies that sometimes are actively recruiting these workers to come in.” He also renewed his commitment to an immigration overhaul.

As for the detainees, most are still awaiting final hearings. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement provided this status report:

Of the 31 detainees, “7 have been deported or have departed voluntarily; 17 are still in proceedings [meaning their cases are still before immigration court]; 4 have had proceedings terminated, and 3 cases were released for humanitarian reasons and given call-in letters for follow up. None of the individuals are in ICE custody.”

An ICE spokesperson declined to elaborate on the cases that were “terminated” and said the agency “has no further specifics on the cases.”

The Journal previously reported that criminal charges were brought against four of the workers for document fraud. One was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment; two others got probation, and all three agreed to return to their home countries. A fugitive warrant was issued for the fourth.

And in February, detainee Maira Farfan Maldonado was granted asylum based “on years of extreme domestic violence that she was fleeing in Guatemala.”

All 31 janitors worked for TriState Enterprises and/or Falcon Maintenance LLC. The companies had contracts to clean more than four dozen state buildings, including the courthouses.

A federal investigation into TriState Enterprises has apparently ended without charges.

Falcon Maintenance owner Vincent D’Elia has completed a six-month sentence at a federal halfway house for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. He must also pay the IRS a $10,000 fine. Although the plea agreement led to a misdemeanor charge against D’Elia, U.S. District Judge Mary Lisi said she wanted to send a message that such “greed and corruption” will not be tolerated.

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THE COURTHOUSE RAIDS, and a sweep the previous month that netted 42 illegal immigrants on Aquidneck Island, drew lines in the sand. Justified or not, Governor Carcieri’s executive order has been tied to the fallout. The March 2008 order, in part, calls for deputizing state troopers and certain corrections staff with immigration authority, and requires that state agencies and vendors use the federal E-Verify system to ensure that incoming employees are allowed to work in the United States.

But people on both sides of the issue say the Obama administration’s shift toward prioritizing prosecution of employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, rather than the immigrants themselves, is the right direction.

“The raids I think, were terrible,” said Rabbi Alan Flam, a member of the governor’s monitoring panel.

The rabbi said he was out of state when the panel held its first meeting. Unbeknownst to panel members, federal agents and state police were raiding the courthouses at that time.

“I came back and my sense was … they raised the tensions very high,” Rabbi Flam said of the raids. “I think we’re still at that point, because I don’t think there’s been a lot of movement in this issue.”

The rabbi called Napolitano’s moratorium on raids and Mr. Obama’s pledge to push for an overhaul, “a positive thing.” But he expressed concern that the president’s crowded agenda may prevent that. Said the rabbi, “I think on a federal level, my hunch is the administration wants to be moving on this front but there are so many irons in the fire, they may not be able to.”

Terry Gorman, president of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement (RIILE), vocal Carcieri supporter and frequent talk-show caller, said, “I think that [the raids] put a lot of the employers in Rhode Island on notice. I think they’re looking over their shoulder, and I don’t think there’s as many willing to hire illegal aliens as they were in the past. I think there are just as many illegal aliens working, but I don’t think they’re increasing, just because of fear of the raids like they had at the courthouse.”

Gorman said he concurs with Napolitano’s directive to first pursue employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

“That’s the problem,” he said. “If the people weren’t offering jobs, we wouldn’t have illegal aliens. We may have some, but we wouldn’t have anywhere near the problem that we have today.”

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the Obama administration’s shift “is a welcome change in policy. What we saw happen in New Bedford as well as in Providence demonstrated how inhumane these dragnet immigration raids are, often tearing apart families without warning and harming children and parents who are lawful residents.”

Brown said, “The raids, like the Governor’s executive order, spread fear throughout the community. I think that fear still exists, though some of it may have turned to resignation at this point. I think the worst aspect of both the raids and the executive order was their divisiveness. However unintended, they only fueled the fire of anti-immigrant sentiment in the state — a fire that still burns today.”

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A NATIONAL BACKLOG in the country’s immigration courts that the Center for Investigative Reporting recently estimated at more than 200,000 cases, has left many of the courthouse detainees waiting for a resolution.

“Everything is stuck,” said Nelson Baten Morales, who worked first for Falcon and then for TriState.

Baten Morales said he has attended three preliminary hearings. His next court date is March 2010: he’s hoping to win asylum.

Unable to work because of his detainee status, Baten Morales is laying low. “Most of the time, I spend in my house,” he said. “I’m not afraid, but I don’t like problems. I don’t like to go too far for anything.”

Gustavo Cabrera, who was profiled in The Journal last August, has also been waiting.

Next month, a Boston immigration judge is expected to rule on Cabrera’s petition for asylum that his lawyer, Roberto Gonzalez, said will be based on the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act, a law passed in 1997 that provides benefits and relief from deportations to certain Nicaraguans, Cubans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans and other foreign nationals. If Cabrera loses his case, he will return to Guatemala and leave his family behind.

In the year since his arrest, Cabrera’s life has taken dramatic twists. Last fall, he suffered a near-fatal diabetic coma. His finances are “very very bad,” and friends are helping him out. Meanwhile, his daughter, born in the U.S., won a partial college scholarship to the University of Rhode Island. His wife, a legal permanent resident, is working part-time and applying to cooking school, to help the family “have a better life.”

Cabrera, of Providence, hopes that the Obama administration has set a new tone that will help his cause. So do his family members.

His daughter Cindy, who is heading to URI this fall, said, “I appreciate every day I have with him. We have a new president who is very open-minded ... I just feel like, honestly, when we had the Bush administration, we were done for. Now there are so many changes, I feel like it’s possible.”

Lucy Contreras, a 45-year-old Guatemalan national who lives in Providence, also has a March 2010 court date.

Contreras said she overstayed a tourist visa to escape a violent husband and to get medical help for a daughter whose leg was amputated after an accident.

She said she is applying for domestic-violence based asylum — one that is difficult to win.

Like other detainees, Contreras relies on her family for money, and on Providence activist organizations that include the Olneyville Neighborhood Association; Direct Action for Rights and Equality, and the Immigrants in Action committee at St. Teresa Church in Providence. In that regard, Contreras said she is helping plan a community commemoration next Sunday marking the one-year anniversary of the raid.

“It’s not going to be a party,” she said, “because there’s nothing to celebrate.”

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