JUDGE: COURTS LET IMMIGRATION SLIDE

WASHINGTON -- The number of drug dealers caught at the Texas-Mexico border
has overwhelmed the federal court system, forcing judges to mostly ignore
immigration violations, a Texas-based federal judge told Congress on Thursday.

Texas and federal lawmen also told a House subcommittee that more than
two-thirds of all illicit drugs confiscated along the Southwest border are
seized in Texas, and the North American Free Trade Agreement has made it
tougher to stanch the flow.

"My message here today is simple: The border courts are beyond their
capacity to handle their caseloads," said U.S. District Judge W. Royal
Furgeson Jr. of the Western District of Texas.

"Washington cannot increase the crackdown on illegal drugs and immigration
along the Southwest border without more judges to allow these cases to be
prosecuted."

Michael Scott, of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said drug
smugglers looking to come from Mexico into Texas have benefited from the
huge increase in cross-border traffic since NAFTA passed in 1994.

"It is clear there have been some serious unintended or overlooked
consequences" of NAFTA, Scott testified.

As few as one in 20 vehicles crossing the border are searched, he said.

"This is a prescription for failure ... Mexican drug-trafficking
organizations have exploited our collective inability to inspect vehicles
and pedestrians entering this country," Scott said.

The status of the ongoing federal war on drugs in Texas and elsewhere along
the border with Mexico was examined at a hearing of the House subcommittee
on crime Thursday.

During the hearing, members of Congress and those testifying made
references to the film Traffic, which portrays a failed war on drugs. "What
we've heard is incredibly discouraging," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San
Antonio, who chaired the hearing.

Some federal law enforcement officials said anti-drug efforts should not be
viewed as a failure.

Law enforcement efforts to stop the flood of drugs, combined with education
and treatment programs, have had an important impact, said Drug Enforcement
Administrator Donnie Marshall.

He said the number of regular illegal-drug users in the United States has
fallen from 26 million in 1980 to 13 million today.

But Marshall admitted that despite dismantling "two or three dozen major
drug organizations" in recent years, the major kingpins controlling the
illicit drug trade remain untouchable in Mexico Colombia and the Dominican
Republic.

Some members of the congressional panel, including Democratic Rep. Sheila
Jackson Lee of Houston, questioned whether any increased spending against
drug abuse would be more effectively used for additional treatment programs.

"We have been engaged in a war on drugs for a long time," she said. "I'm
not convinced we are being successful."

The problem is particularly acute for Texas, experts said Thursday.

An estimated 55 percent of the cocaine smuggled across the Mexican border
enters in South Texas, while 68 percent of all drugs seized at the border
are grabbed in Texas, according to U.S. Border Patrol statistics.

And, since NAFTA became law in 1994, the motor vehicle traffic into Texas
has grown dramatically, reaching 48 million passenger vehicles and 3.1
million commercial trucks in 2000.

Scott said Mexican drug smugglers are buying trucking companies to help
them move cocaine and heroin into the United States.

Another problem in fighting the drug war on Texas turf is that many of the
smaller drug arrests are being shunted into state courts, burdening state
prosecutors and, according to Scott, "costing local taxpayers millions of
dollars."

Smith noted that the Bush administration budget was authorizing $50 million
to reimburse counties along the Southwest border for costs of assisting
federal drug prosecutions.

Furgeson outlined an avalanche of added burdens on the federal court system
in Texas and elsewhere along the border with Mexico.

He noted that drug prosecutions in federal courts have doubled since 1993.
During that period, immigration cases have increased sevenfold.

Furgeson said, "We can't handle any more cases." Of the 1,644,000 illegal
immigrants apprehended along the border last year, only 1 percent were
prosecuted.

John Varrone, assistant commissioner of the U.S. Customs Service, outlined
some recent successes in nabbing drugs and busting smugglers coming across
the Texas border.

Last week, customs agents found 1,450 pounds of marijuana on a train that
crossed the border at Brownsville. Eight Mexicans were arrested. And two
weeks ago, a ship was seized on Falcon Lake, near Falcon Heights, with
8,800 pounds of pot on board that had come from Mexico.

But Varrone said for every pound of drugs confiscated, at least a pound
gets through. "In my personal opinion, we are not getting 50 percent," he
said. "The windows of opportunity for would-be drug smugglers along the
border are staggering."

Varrone noted that 293 million people crossed the U.S. border from Mexico
last year, along with nearly 100 million vehicles.

Thursday's hearing was billed as a look at the situation existing on the
border, and few new solutions were proposed.

But Furgeson said the shortage of federal judges on the border could be
solved if Congress would let judges be transferred from states where the
workload was lighter.

That recommendation has been ignored by Congress, as states jealously guard
their federal judgeships.

Rep. Smith acknowledged Thursday the idea was likely to go unheeded. After
conferring with ranking Democrat Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, Smith said,
"Member Scott says the judges aren't coming from Virginia."