Mr. Kelly said the department would begin prosecuting suspects in cases involving guns or drugs in federal court, where sentences are harsher.
The Manhattan district attorney's office said on Wednesday that it would not begin prosecuting one of two suspects arrested after confrontations between a group of motorcyclists and the driver of an S.U.V. on the West Side of Manhattan on Sunday.
The Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, who appealed her decision, said yesterday's ruling "corrects what would have otherwise been a gross miscarriage of justice" and declared that his office would begin prosecuting Mr. Hodges.
What affects the industry is when DEA agents start kicking down doors and U.S. attorneys begin prosecuting people," said marijuana expert John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy think tank.
Last month, Trump administration officials announced a "zero-tolerance" policy in which they would begin prosecuting adult border-crossers for the misdemeanor crime of illegal entry while routing their children into the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
The origins of the sting operations date to 1994, when Ms. Pirro's office began prosecuting a case against a 51-year-old Seattle man named Alan Paul Barlow, who was sending sexually explicit pictures of himself to a 14-year-old Mamaroneck girl on the Internet.
Croatia has become the new route of choice for refugees desperate to reach the welcome offered to them in western Europe, after Hungary closed its borders and began prosecuting anyone who entered the country "illegally".
