http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16451889

New Mexico candidate Susana Martinez challenged on border security record
By Adriana Gómez Licón \ El Paso Times
Posted: 10/28/2010 12:00:00 AM MDT

Susana Martinez, Republican candidate for governor of New Mexico, has turned border security into a centerpiece of her campaign, though she is short on specifics of exactly what she has done.

Martinez says she has prosecuted more than 600 cases annually related to border security, but she would not delineate what types of crimes were involved.

Martinez, 51, also says she has secured convictions against Mexican drug cartel members. But neither she nor members of her campaign staff will be specific about which cartel members she has convicted.

The district attorney of Doña Ana County, Martinez is running against Democrat Diane Denish in the governor race. The winner will be the first woman elected as the state's chief executive. And if Martinez prevails, she will become the first female Hispanic governor in the country.

Martinez has long portrayed herself as an expert in prosecuting child-abuse cases. But in her gubernatorial campaign she has emphasized her work in protecting New Mexico's borders from "violent Mexican drug cartels."

Wednesday night, Martinez's campaign manager Ryan Cangiolosi e-mailed a spreadsheet showing hundreds of High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas cases prosecuted by Martinez's office.

"The 600 cases figure is conservative," Cangiolosi said. "There are even more cases that qualify for Southwest Border Prosecutors' Initiative Funds. Additionally, there are other border-related cases that are neither HIDTA, nor SWBPI cases, such as when an illegal immigrant is prosecuted for crimes such as DWI, assault, and homicide. For example, 746 defendants had immigration holds placed on them in 2006 and 2007 after being arrested for various criminal offenses."

The district attorney of El Paso County, Jaime Esparza, said it is difficult to define border-security cases. Esparza said border crimes mostly involve weapons, drugs and gangs.

Esparza estimates he prosecutes about 750 border crimes every year in El Paso County, which has a population of about 750,000. Doña Ana County, less than a third the size of El Paso County, has a population of about 206,000.

The majority of the cases Esparza defines as border crimes are reported to the Southwest Border Prosecutors' Initiative, a federal program that reimburses district attorneys for cases they prosecute. Both Doña Ana and El Paso are parts of the program.

Martinez handled 208 "border crimes" in 2008, according to the most recent report from the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative. State statistics show about 550 felony drug cases she prosecuted in the same period, though about 70 of those ended in dismissals.

Most of these drug cases did not involve cartels, and the amounts of narcotics could have been relatively small. High-profile drug cases typically are prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's staff in federal court.

Martinez has been district attorney since 1997 in a county with one port of entry in Santa Teresa and one Border Patrol checkpoint near Las Cruces. By comparison, El Paso County shares five international bridges with Mexico.

The cartels fighting for the New Mexican drug corridors are the Sinaloa and Juárez drug cartels. The drugs smuggled are mostly marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamines, said sheriff's Sgt. Bobby Holden, of the metro narcotics task force, an umbrella law enforcement detail in Doña Ana County.

Holden said gang-related cases were rare. Drug smuggling is common, he said.

Although Holden said significant seizures have been made in recent years, he could not name a high-profile arrest or conviction of a drug cartel member during Martinez's tenure as district attorney.

Martinez and her campaign have not named higher-ups who have been convicted by her staff, saying such disclosures could affect future investigations. Any such cases, though, would have been prosecuted in open court.

A native of El Paso, Martinez in March was named her state's prosecutor of the year by the State Bar of New Mexico. Most polls show her leading Denish, the current lieutenant governor.

For her part, Denish has criticized Martinez's tactics, saying she has exaggerated her record as a border district attorney.

"No one can find evidence that she has prosecuted any drug cartels in New Mexico," Denish said.

Denish wants to build satellite training centers for National Guardsmen on the border to help with response time in case of emergencies.

But Denish could not name one of the two Mexican states bordering New Mexico. She also could not identify the Mexican drug cartels regularly involved in border smuggling.

"If I were a district attorney, I would certainly know the name," Denish said.