Creating benches and filling vacancies will move dockets.

mysanantonio.com
Updated 12:03 a.m., Saturday, December 31, 2011

Federal courts along the U.S.-Mexico border need help.

Drug smuggling and illegal immigration cases are overwhelming the dockets, and they will continue to do so as the crackdown on these types of cases increases.

The situation prompted Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to declare a judicial crisis along the border in his most recent annual report on the federal judiciary.

Legislation to create three new federal benches in California, three in Texas and one in Arizona to help the situation merits bipartisan support.

Two of the new judgeships would be in the Western District of Texas which includes San Antonio, Del Rio and El Paso, the Express-News reports.

Cases in the Western District increased by 10 percent in the last year, according to the U.S. Administrative Office of the Courts.

The other new Texas federal bench would be in the Southern District, which includes Laredo and stretches down the Rio Grande Valley and encompasses Brownsville and McAllen.

Cases in that sector rose 15 percent last year.

Creating new courts will help move the docket, but it would help also if the partisan bickering over the filling of existing federal judicial vacancies would end.

There are currently six empty federal benches across the state.

U.S. Magistrate Diana Saldaņa was finally confirmed by the Senate earlier this year to fill a vacancy in Laredo, but there are still six others to be filled.

Two of those positions have nominees awaiting confirmation and four posts don't even have nominees. It's time to get moving.

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