SRC-JEC S.C.R. 12 77(R)   BILL ANALYSIS


Senate Research Center   S.C.R. 12
77R2904 MTD-DBy: Shapleigh
Business & Commerce
3/26/2001
As Filed


DIGEST

The strategy of the United States Department of Justice for reducing crime
along the United States border focuses on illegal immigration, alien
smuggling, and drug trafficking.  The resulting increase in related
criminal cases has been handled by the five federal southwestern judicial
districts along the border, including two in Texas.  In 1999, these five
courts received 27 percent of all criminal case filings in the United
States, while the other 73 percent  of cases were spread among the
country's remaining 84 federal district courts.  The total number of cases
has increased dramatically in the past five years, while the judicial
resources have hardly increased.  Smaller cases are referred to local
district attorneys in the border counties of Texas to prosecute, thereby
burdening the local governments, which are among the poorest in the United
States.  The annual cost to prosecute these federal criminal cases ranges
from $2.7 million to approximately $8.2 million per district attorney
jurisdiction, and it is anticipated that the total cost will reach $25
million per year.  The federal government has more resources than the state
and local governments, and in turn must shoulder a larger portion of the
financial burden of federal border cases. 

PURPOSE 

As proposed, S.C.R. 12 submits the following resolutions:

Respectfully urges the Congress of the United States to authorize an
additional 16 federal judges and commensurate staff to handle the current
and anticipated caseloads along the Texas-Mexico border and to fully
reimburse local governments for the costs incurred in prosecuting and
incarcerating federal defendants; and 

Requires the Texas secretary of state to forward official copies of this
resolution to the president of the United States, the speaker of the house
of representatives and the president of the senate of the United States
Congress, and to all the members of the Texas delegation to the congress
with the request that this resolution be officially entered in the
Congressional Record as a memorial to the Congress of the United States of
America.