WASHINGTON — Before President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies took effect early this year, thousands of undocumented residents were given a break from being deported.

Government immigration officials would hold off if the illegal immigrants were married to American citizens or longtime residents of the U.S., gainfully employed and had committed no crime other than being in the country illegally.

It was, said immigration lawyer Heather Prendegast of Cleveland, the “government’s attempt to be nice.”

The cordiality ended when Trump officials instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to get tough on illegal immigration, according to a study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Giving undocumented residents a pass “has largely been abolished,” the study concluded.

From February through June of this year, less than 100 immigrant cases per month were dismissed or suspended, compared with 2,500 per month during the same period last year, the study found.

The administration is taking such an inflexible approach that ICE spokeswoman Sarah Rodriguez said in an email the agency no longer accepts requests for leniency from lawyers for illegal immigrants.

Instead, it is re-examining earlier deportations ICE attorneys had agreed to put on hold before Trump took office to see if they should be re-opened, particularly if the person has since been arrested or convicted of a crime.

Private immigration attorneys have noticed. Prosecutorial discretion has come to a “screeching halt,” said Michelle Edstrom, an Oklahoma City attorney who is the American Immigration Lawyers Association liaison with the government.

Boston attorney Gregory Romanovsky, chairman of the association’s Massachusetts chapter, said ICE has privately said deportations will not be put off “unless someone is dying.”

The shift reflects the unbending stance on illegal immigration Trump promised during his presidential campaign. Arrests are being carried out on a broad scale.

The Obama administration prioritized the arrest of serious criminals, including suspected terrorists, persons who committed violent crime, dealt drugs or were considered a serious threat to public safety. It did not aggressively pursue law-abiding immigrants.

ICE said in a statement to CNHI this week it is no longer excusing those undocumented residents who have not committed weighty crimes.

“All of those in violation of the immigrant laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States,” said the agency.

Reaction to the change illustrates divisions over how to handle longtime illegal immigrants who haven’t caused problems. Advocates of leniency argue they should be left alone. Hardliners say all immigrants have committed a crime by illegally entering the U.S. and should be treated as criminals.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the tougher enforcement Federal of American Immigration Reform, said the numbers show how the Obama administration had been overly lenient in its deportation policies.

“In essence,” said Mehlman, “the Obama policy wasn’t prosecutorial discretion but rather nullification of most immigration laws.”

Jessica Vaughan, policy director for the Center for Immigration studies, another group that wants tougher enforcement, said ICE under Obama “carried out a giant rolling amnesty for thousands of illegal aliens, just by throwing their cases out of immigration court.”

She said government data “shows just how dramatically things have changed under the Trump administration.”

But critics of Trump’s hard-nosed policies say the numbers illustrate how the country has moved away from humanitarian considerations to going after any undocumented immigrant ICE encounters or discovers.

According to Justice Department figures released this week, 57,069 illegals who were either deported or left voluntarily between Feb. 1 and July 31 – nearly a third more than the same period last year.

Edstrom, the Oklahoma City attorney, said one of her clients was caught up in Trump’s tougher stance. The man is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico married to a U.S. citizen but he cannot gain re-entry to the U.S. to be with his wife.

Under the Obama administration, he could obtain a waiver in advance to leave the U.S. and then return by going to the American consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and applying for citizenship and a green card. The purpose of that approach was to minimize the amount of time immigrants had to be away from their U.S. family, said Edstrom.

ICE attorneys no longer agree to allow people in the situation to apply for a waiver until they first leave the U.S., Edstrom said. That’s a problem because it can take six months to get an appointment at the consulate and almost another five months to get a waiver to return to the U.S. and obtain a green card.

The result is the Mexican immigrant’s U.S. wife has to fend without the income from her husband’s job in America, and will likely end up on government assistance.

“How does that make any case whatsoever?” she asked.

Contact reporter Kery Murakami at kmurakami@cnhi.com.