Border judges swamped with cases

Washington Times:

Illegal alien-related felony cases are swamping federal courts along the southwest border, forcing judges to handle hundreds more cases than their peers elsewhere.
Judges in the five, mostly rural judicial districts on the border carry the heaviest felony caseloads in the nation. Each judge in New Mexico, which ranked first, handled an average of 397 felony cases last year, compared with the national average of 84.
Federal judges in those five districts -- southern and western Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Southern California -- handled one-third of all the felonies prosecuted in the nation's 94 federal judicial districts in 2005, according to federal court statistics.
While Congress has increased the number of border patrol officers, the pace of the law enforcement has eclipsed the resources for the court system.
Judges say they are stretched to the limit with cases involving drug trafficking or illegal aliens who have also committed serious crimes. Judges say they need help.
"The need is really dire. You cannot keep increasing the number of Border Patrol agents but not increasing the number of judges," said Chief Judge John M. Roll of the District of Arizona.
A bill by Sen. Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico Republican, would add 10 permanent and temporary judges in Arizona, New Mexico, and southern and western Texas. Proposals like it have gone nowhere in the past two years. The bill is co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona, and John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, both of Texas.
"I can't even tell you how much we need that," Judge Roll said.
The entire federal court system is affected, from U.S. marshals to magistrate judges. The bottleneck has even derailed enforcement efforts.
During a push to crack down on illegal aliens last fall, Customs and Border Protection floated a plan for New Mexico that would have suspended the practice of sending home hundreds of illegal aliens caught near the border with Mexico. Instead, these people would be sent to court.
The idea, called Operation Streamline, was to make it clear that people caught illegally in the U.S. would be prosecuted.
Then New Mexico's federal judges reminded the Border Patrol that they lacked the resources to handle the hundreds of new defendants who would stream into the court system every day.
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The plan had to be scrapped because of the lack of facilities and people to take care of them. This needs to be fixed most ricki tick and Domenici's bill sounds like a good start. The story gives no rationale for opposition to it. For the rule of law to prevale, there must be adequate enforcement mechanism. We need to be in the place where we can apply the "broken window" method to border enforcement. When that happens illegal crossings will be substantially reduced.