Albuquerque – U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales outlined plans Monday to add 20 federal prosecutors to handle only immigration-related offenses and five others to target drug trafficking in states along the border with Mexico.
The new assistant U.S. attorneys will work in border areas of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to address human smuggling, illegal entry into the United States and document fraud, and to target employers who hire undocumented immigrants.
The program also will include five new prosecutors – one in each of the five federal law-enforcement districts along the border – under the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, targeting drug-trafficking organizations.
Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security plans to identify lawyers who will be designated as special assistant U.S. attorneys, responsible for prosecuting immigration offenses.
“As a nation of laws, it is important that those who cross our borders illegally or smuggle drugs are prosecuted swiftly and fairly,” Gonzales said. “These new prosecutors will help ensure that our immigration and drug laws are aggressively enforced.”
Gonzales said that in the past six years, the Justice Department has boosted the number of federal prosecutors along the Mexican border by 29 percent, to 561. During the same span, he said, immigration prosecutions have increased about 40 percent and that about 30 percent of all new criminal cases involve immigration crimes.
That makes immigration the largest category of cases addressed by federal prosecutors. Gonzales said that last year, more than 95 percent of immigration prosecutions led to convictions.
Earlier Monday in Santa Fe, Gonzales said the Bush administration remains hopeful that Congress, despite election-year pressures, will agree on comprehensive immigration legislation this year.
