Thread: Gary Miller: Making sure border security goes full circle

Gary Miller: Making sure border security goes full circle
By Rep. Gary Miller
Posted: 09/23/2010 05:49:03 PM PDT


DURING the last several years, stepped up enforcement and prosecution efforts in Southwest border jurisdictions have resulted in a significant increase in the number of drug, immigration, and weapons cases being filed in courts along the border. Consequently, the current workload experienced by district courts located in Southwest border states is staggering.

Among these district courts, the five district courts along the Southwest border - which include Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Western Texas, and Southern Texas - are particularly having difficulty keeping up with their growing workload. When combined, these five district courts along the Southwest border handled nearly 75 percent of criminal immigration cases in the nation's 94 districts in fiscal year 2009 and almost 40 percent of all the nation's federal criminal case filings. Here's just a brief snapshot of one Southwest district court:

Last year in the Tucson division of the district court for Arizona, felony cases and defendants increased by more than 65 percent from the previous year. Of those cases, a staggering 90 percent were drug and immigration related.

In addition, there were 300,000 apprehensions during the first six months of 2009 and 1.2 million pounds of marijuana were seized. What is worse, illegal immigrants found with less than 500 pounds of marijuana were released because the courts did not have the manpower to deal with the influx of cases. This is simply unacceptable.

Unfortunately, this anecdote is not an outlier. Rather, it demonstrates a systemic problem experienced by the district courts along the Southwest border. It is clear that the judiciary's resources must continue to keep pace with these workload increases. Without additional resources, a bottleneck in the judicial system will occur because the courts will lack the resources necessary to process the additional criminal cases brought by the Department of Justice.

To address this issue in the short-term, several of my colleagues and I wrote to Congressional Appropriators requesting funding for the Judiciary be contained in the Fiscal Year 2010 Emergency Border Security Supplemental Act. Fortunately, we were able to secure $10 million for the Southwest district courts in the bill, which was signed into law last month. This funding will be of assistance to the Judiciary as more cases are brought to the courts as a result of increased border security funding and ongoing enforcement activities.

Although this emergency funding for the Judiciary will help to alleviate the Southwest district courts' current predicament, it is clear a long-term solution is needed. To this end, I have introduced the Ensuring Justice Along the Southwest Border Act. This bill contains a two-fold approach to making sure our border security plan is full circle.

First, the bill contains the Judicial Conference of the United States' recommendations for increased judgeships in the Southwest border states' district courts. During these difficult economic times, I am hardly one to promote increasing employment in the public sector, but the Judicial Conference employs a variety of approaches to make the most of their resources and to ensure resources are distributed in a manner consistent with workload. By adding the Judicial Conference's recommendations for additional judgeships, we will ensure that important border-related cases are not turned away, such as the illegal immigrant found smuggling less than 500 pounds of marijuana.

Second, the Ensuring Justice Along the Southwest Border Act authorizes the attorney general to appoint special assistant U.S. attorneys to prosecute border-related crimes, such as illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and human smuggling. This authorization will facilitate the prosecution of those that have contributed to the growing violence along the Southwest border by recklessly violating our nation's laws.

All in all, as our nation is spending more money on border security we need to make sure the judiciary has the resources needed to deal with their increased workload. It would be a shame to spend so many taxpayer dollars on border security only to let those who have broken our nation's immigration and drug laws go free. As Congress continues to debate a comprehensive border security strategy to secure our border and protect our communities from escalating drug-related violence, we must consider the judiciary.

Rep. Gary Miller, R-Brea, represents California's 42nd Congressional District.

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_16157934

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