BORDER DAS GET FUNDS, BACK OFF DRUG CASE THREAT

HARLINGEN -- Border prosecutors Friday backed off their threat to stop
prosecuting drug cases referred by federal agencies because Texas
congressional leaders came up with a last-minute appropriation of $12
million for them.

District attorneys along the Texas-Mexico border had said they would no
longer prosecute small drug cases referred by federal authorities after July
1. On Friday, they agreed to push that deadline back three months.

The $12 million will be divided evenly among the four states that border
Mexico.

"What it does is give us all a little bit of breathing room," said Yolanda
De Leon, Cameron County district attorney. "We will continue to do what
we've been doing, but will be paid for what we do until the end of
September."

Most of the cases involve small drug seizures -- usually less than 50
pounds -- made at the many international bridges and Border Patrol
checkpoints along the border. Border counties, some of the poorest in the
state, are spending millions of dollars prosecuting the cases, according to
the district attorneys.

They contend that it is unfair for Washington, D.C., to place that burden on
local taxpayers.

"We're partners in the War on Drugs," one state prosecutor said. "But
there's a difference between helping each other out and being suckers."

Rene Guerra, district attorney in fast-growing Hidalgo County, called the
funding "a step in the right direction."

"I hope this is the beginning to a permanent solution for what the federal
government does about this onslaught of drug cases on the border."

A pair of drug busts on the same bridge Thursday in Hidalgo County
illustrate the situation.

One woman was arrested and will be prosecuted in federal court after U.S.
Customs agents searched her car and found 25 pounds of cocaine with a street
value of $1.1 million. But a 17-year-old Mexican woman, who had 191 pounds
of marijuana in her car worth less than $200,000, was referred for
prosecution in state court.

In Laredo, Webb County District Attorney Joe Rubio quit accepting federal
drug referrals in October 1997 after his request for financial help was
turned down.

Republican U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was instrumental in getting the
appropriation passed, said Cathy Travis, an aide to South Texas congressman
Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi.

"Mr. Ortiz has talked with a couple of DAs in Texas and they say it's good
enough for a good-faith effort," Travis said. "They won't go through with
their July 1 deadline, but this isn't off the table. They stressed in very
strong terms this was only a 90-day reprieve."

Travis said Ortiz is working to obtain permanent funding for state
prosecutors in the next fiscal year, which begins in October. He also is
pushing legislation to create another 13 federal courts along the Southwest
border.

Guerra believes the federal cases should be handled only by federal judges
and prosecutors. Savvy drug lords now tailor their loads so that if caught,
their couriers will get lighter sentences in state court, he said.

"The traffickers now have figured out the thresholds, what is going to be
referred to state court and what federal. We need to close that loophole,"
Guerra said.

The root of the problem, De Leon said, is that funding for prosecutors has
not kept pace with funding for police officers and agents.

"It is a narrow perspective if they only fund law enforcement, and not the
other side of the equation," she said.