http://www.elpasotimes.com/opinion/ci_15152903

Immigrant cases: Courtroom dockets overloaded
El Paso Times Editorial Board
Posted: 05/25/2010 12:00:00 AM MDT

Non-action on rewriting federal immigration laws is clogging courtrooms along the southern border. Five-year-old Operation Streamline brings low-level criminal charges against virtually all illegal immigrants.

This is one of two issues of an at-odds public-policy agenda by the federal government. Besides the the aggressive Operation Streamline, there is an equally aggressive agenda to apprehend and prosecute drug traffickers. Courtroom space was not set up for this one-two sock on top of normal docket items.

University of Texas at El Paso Professor Josiah Heyman told the Brownsville Herald, "I think they have literally reached the point in a number of federal jurisdictions where they have run out of courtroom space and U.S. Marshals to keep order." Heyman chairs the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at UTEP.

President Obama has been unable to get a majority in Congress to address the issue of some 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Meanwhile, our teaming with the Mexican government on fighting the criminal drug trade has been a failure, according to several high U.S. officials.

Immigration reform and prosecuting hard criminals are two very different matters.

Immigrants, by and large, are not committing crimes against persons; however, being here without proper documentation can mean arrest and prosecution.

Drug dealers, gunrunners and smugglers of humans and other contraband must certainly be prosecuted.

We are losing on both sides of thesetwo initiatives that the federal government smacks down on our chain of courtrooms along the border.

Our southern court dockets are overstuffed. We are making moves with Mexico to fight the drug problem.

Now it is high time members of Congress think of what's best for the citizens, and not just what's best for their re-election campaigns.

Our top leaders, representing both political parties, must stand for what is right and solve this immigration question. It is causing so much angst in America and is causing several negative side-effects, now including clogging our judicial system with border-related caseloads.