Prosecutors pool resources to combat border crimes
April 03, 2011 10:32 PM
By JARED JANES, The Monitor

Cameron County Assistant District Attorney Ismael Hinojosa knew almost immediately when a man he prosecuted on drug-related charges was arrested farther up the Texas-Mexico border.

Within hours of the Webb County arrest, Hinojosa was notified by his counterpart in the Webb County District Attorney’s Office that the man likely violated the terms of his Cameron County probation. Hinojosa declined to discuss the specifics of the case still pending after this week’s arrest, but he said it illustrates a collaboration occurring on a daily basis between a group of border prosecutors.

The team of 16 state prosecutors was established in 2009 to better handle and coordinate prosecution of border crimes. Funded by a $4 million grant from Gov. Rick Perry’s office, the border prosecution unit, or BPU, is a network of assistant district attorneys who collaborate with the Texas Department of Public Safety to develop investigations into organized crime along the border.

In its first year of existence, the BPU prosecuted 2,312 cases, leading to 1,304 convictions on border crimes involving weapons, drugs and human trafficking. But the task force’s leaders say those convictions are only the beginning as they delve into time-intensive investigations of criminal enterprises. And those investigations are likely to continue, with the $4 million grant — along with a host of other border security programs — being funded to previous levels in draft budgets despite the state’s financial straits.

Hinojosa, whose work as Cameron County’s border prosecutor resulted in almost 400 convictions the first year, said the BPU forged inter-jurisdictional cooperation in a "critical stage in the fight against the Mexican drug trafficking organizations."

"(Drug trafficking organizations) work with everyone, it doesn’t matter if it’s the Mexican mafia or the Texas Syndicate," Hinojosa said. "They’ve shown the willingness, the ability and the wherewithal to pool their own resources. We have to do the same."

The $4 million grant covers 16 prosecution offices from El Paso to Brownsville, allowing each district attorney to hire an assistant prosecutor who takes the lead in investigations into crimes conducted by criminal enterprises operating along the border.

The caseload of border crimes — defined by the BPU as involving weapons smuggling, drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, murder and other activities conducted by transnational gangs — is often overwhelming.

In Cameron County, Hinojosa handles only a portion of the border crimes. Fellow assistant district attorneys litigate most of the other minor crimes, while federal prosecutors take on cases developed by federal law enforcement agencies.

But at a time when the state is pouring resources into border security, the BPU ensures state prosecutors can adequately handle the workload generated by an increased law enforcement presence, said state Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, who secured continued funding for the BPU in the two-year budget under consideration. Senate budget writers slightly increased border security funding to $111.5 million in the next biennium despite a projected deficit of up to $27 billion.

Tighter border security enforcement results in more arrests, creating a need to increase the number of prosecutors and specialized investigators to handle cases resulting from border-related crime.

"This type of funding helps DAs assign prosecutors specifically for the purpose of prosecuting drug smugglers but also helps them go after the higher ups who are involved in organizing the criminal activities," Sen. Hinojosa said. "Without this state support, the DAs don’t have the resources to do it."

That’s especially true in a wide swath of rural borderlands where drug traffickers operate freely if left unchecked, said Rene Peña, the BPU chairman and district attorney for the 81st Judicial District based in Floresville. Unlike urbanized El Paso and Hidalgo counties, most border counties don’t have the tax base to support teams of prosecutors.

While the grant provides at least one prosecutor in each jurisdiction, the BPU blurs the jurisdictional lines to allow district attorneys access to others if needed.

Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra said that cooperation between individual prosecutors and DPS is the BPU’s hallmark, encouraging joint operations that recognize criminal activities often are spread across multiple counties. In Hidalgo County, Guerra’s border prosecutor frequently assists the three DPS divisions — the Texas Highway Patrol, the Texas Rangers and the Criminal Investigations Division — with legal expertise in developing cases.

But Hidalgo County also is slated to hire one of three regional prosecutors who coordinate the prosecution of complex, long-term cases against organized criminal enterprises.

The regional concept allows for "vertical prosecutions," where attorneys go beyond simply prosecuting a case to facilitating investigations through wiretaps, search warrants and similar court orders, said Jaime Esparza, the El Paso County District Attorney. Those types of investigations are effective attacks on criminal organizations but are often rare because of the required resources.

But Esparza said the BPU allowed him to embed a prosecutor within DPS to focus on investigations that make a "bigger dent" in the gangs operating as foot soldiers for drug cartels.

"We’ll take care of that street guy because that’s usually what state prosecutors do," Esparza said. "But we’re hoping to lead to the mid-level guys operating in these criminal organizations."

In El Paso, Esparza’s border prosecutor has targeted the Barrio Aztecas, a gang that works with the Juárez drug cartel and was linked to the murder of three people associated with the U.S. Consulate in Mexico.

But the district attorneys also say that law enforcement in differing border regions have unique criminal elements to combat even if the crimes themselves originate from the border.

In Rene Peña’s jurisdiction, for example, the district attorney has three counties situated along Interstate 35 that regularly see trafficking cases. Peña said the BPU refocused efforts toward targeting a relationship that’s evolved between local gangs and the Mexican drug cartels, who have branched out into any crime where they can make a profit.

"The rules of the game have changed," Peña said. "Our emphasis can’t be so much on prosecuting in isolation."

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