BORDER PROSECUTORS WILL KEEP DRUG CASES, FOR NOW

$12 million from feds will help in prosecutions, district attorneys say,
but new plan is needed by Oct. 1

HARLINGEN - Momentarily appeased by promises of $3 million, most
Texas-Mexico border prosecutors say they will continue hearing federal drug
cases.

For the next three months, at least.

Frustrated and broke, a group of district attorneys threatened this spring
to close their courtroom doors today to border drug cases. State courts
usually end up footing the bill for trial and jail when U.S. authorities
seize less than 50 pounds of marijuana on international bridges.

What were once intermittent drug arrests can now end up costing courts more
than $100 million a year in courtroom and jail expenses, said Cameron
County district attorney Yolanda De Leon.

With the deadline looming, Congress agreed early Friday to grant $12
million to Southwest border courts. The emergency money will be divided
evenly between the four states bordering Mexico.

"It's not enough. It's not nearly enough," De Leon said. "But it's a
beginning."

The prosecutors were careful to point out the federal government still
faces an ultimatum: If more money or a better plan doesn't emerge from
Washington by Oct. 1, courts will stop trying federal drug offenders, De
Leon said.

Throughout the 1990s, increases in federal agents along the Southwest
border caused drug seizures to skyrocket. The decision to send a case to
state court usually is made at border checkpoints by U.S. Customs, Drug
Enforcement or Immigration and Naturalization Service agents.

"We have no say so in the matter," De Leon said. "We know we got the case
when it shows up in our office."

While other border prosecutors settle into negotiations, at least one
district attorney has no plans to budge: Webb County's Joe Rubio will stick
to the drug case ban he laid down in 1997. Of all the Texas border
prosecutors, Rubio was the first to put his foot down against the federal
government.

"Hey, come on, we can't afford it," Rubio spokesman Tom Sanchez said
Friday. "It's a federal problem, and it's time for them to pony up to the
bar and buy a round like everybody else."

If the Texas prosecutors drop the drug cases altogether, the two U.S.
attorneys' offices serving the Texas border will be left to pick up the slack.

That's no small task for the federal courts, whose caseloads have more than
doubled in the past five years.

"We'd find a way to do the cases one way or another," said Assistant U.S.
Attorney Rick Lara. "We're like the front lines here: Sometimes things
fluctuate, and you have to keep up."

State prosecutors are sympathetic - but adamant.

"We sort of joined forces and felt like it was an unfair situation,"
Hidalgo County district attorney Rene Guerra said. "Why should we continue
to do the federal government's work without compensation?"