FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 19, 2001
CONTACT: Lisette McSoud Mondello
SENATOR HUTCHISON SECURES FUNDS FOR SOUTHWEST BORDER
PROSECUTORS,
AGENTS AND NEW FACILITIES
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Almost $180 million requested by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) for crime fighting and prosecution efforts along the southwest border was included in a bill passed today by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Prosecutors along the southwest border will get $50 million for costs associated with processing and prosecuting federal drug cases in the fiscal year 2002 funding bill (H.R. 2500) for the Department of Justice. The senator secured $13 million last year.
"Law enforcement and prosecutors along the border are struggling to fight the sky-rocketing drug trafficking there and swiftly punish the offenders," said Senator Hutchison, a member of the committee. "These funds will help bolster the border's efforts against the war on drugs."
According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, more than half the cocaine smuggled into the United States crosses the southwest border, now the main entry point for cocaine shipments into the United States.
From March 1994 through March 1999, criminal cases filed in southwest border courts increased by 125 percent (from 6,460 to 14,517), drug prosecutions in these same districts increased by 189 percent (from 2,864 to 5,414), and immigration prosecutions rose by 431 percent (from 1,056 to 5,614).
As part of Senator Hutchison's continuing effort to increase infrastructure and personnel on the border, also included at her request was $75 million for the Immigration and Naturalization Service to hire 570 full-time Border Patrol agents, and funding ($54.4 million) for a number of new Border Patrol and INS facilities across Texas, including:
Hebronville Border Patrol Station – $1,733,000
Rio Grande City Border Patrol Station – $583,000
Brownsville Border Patrol Station – $2,104,000
Sierra Blanca Border Patrol Station – $1,541,000
Del Rio checkpoints – $7,566,000
Santa Teresa Border Patrol Station – $1,063,000
El Paso Border Patrol Station – $10,893,000
McAllen Border Patrol Station – $9,664,000
Eagle Pass Border Patrol Station – $12,854,000
Port Isabel Border Patrol Station – $6,468,000
"Our Border Patrol agents have been forced to work in inadequate and often unsafe facilities for too long," Senator Hutchison said. "This construction money is a down payment on the many new and upgraded facilities we must have to effectively stop the flow of drugs and illegal aliens across the border."
The bill will now be sent to the Senate floor for debate by the full Senate, then reconciled with a version of the bill passed by the House on July 18.
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