DOJ adds prosecutors to combat border crime

BROWNSVILLE -- Thirteen federal prosecutors are headed to South Texas to take on a growing number of immigration, drug trafficking and arms smuggling cases.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the new positions Wednesday as part of a plan to hire 64 new prosecutors and 35 support staff across the nation's entire Southwest border.

The new staff members are expected to assist the five affected judicial districts in carrying out government initiatives aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration and hindering cross-border crime, said Deputy Attorney General Mark R. Filip during a trip to Nogales, Ariz.

"There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problems faced along the border," Filip said. "What works in one district or sector may not work in another, and the most pressing needs even within a single district may well change over time."

He is expected to make a similar announcement this morning at a press conference in Brownsville.

The move comes as the Bush administration continues its efforts to secure the nation's southern border and improve worksite enforcement despite Congress' failure to pass a comprehensive immigration reform package last year.

The Justice Department has requested $100 million for border security efforts as part of its budget for the 2009 fiscal year.

As part of the $7 million expansion, Arizona will get 21 new prosecutors, California and New Mexico will receive seven. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas, which stretches from Del Rio to El Paso, will add 16.

The districts with the highest staffing bumps include cities currently participating in Operation Streamline, an initiative that prosecutes every immigrant caught illegally entering the United States.

Previously, illegal immigrants with no criminal record in the United States were bused back to Mexico and released. The latter policy still remains in effect in the Rio Grande Valley.

Still, immigration prosecutions in the Southern District of Texas, which includes the Valley, top the nation's four other districts on the Southwestern border.

Currently, the U.S. Border Patrol has implemented Operation Streamline in Laredo, Del Rio and Yuma, Ariz.

In Del Rio, federal immigration prosecutions spiked to more than 14,000 in the last fiscal year, but arrests of illegal border crossers have dropped there by 67 percent in the two years since Streamline's start, Border Patrol Supervisory Agent Hilario Leal said in November.

Federal officials point to the plummeting detention rates as a sign that immigrants have been deterred from crossing in those sectors.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Jeremy Roebuck covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.