Speech #1100038569

President. I rise today to introduce legislation that authorizes the Federal judgeships recommended by the 2007 Judicial Conference for our U.S. District Courts that are overloaded with immigration cases. For a year. I have been telling the Senate about the crisis on our Southwest border involving judges who are overwhelmed by the sheer number of immigration cases that are filed in their courts. New caseload numbers have recently become available. and it is clear that this problem is not going awayCongress must act to fix it. Federal Court Management Statistics available at www.uscourts.gov reveal that for the 12month period ending September 30. 2006. four District Courts each had more than one thousand criminal immigration filings. Not surprisingly. all of these Districts share a border with Mexico. In fiscal year 2006. the Southern District of Texas had 3.679 immigration cases. the Western District of Texas had 2.324 immigration cases. the District of New Mexico had 1.940 immigration cases. and the District of Arizona had 1.924 immigration filings. In each of these Districts. immigration filings make up more than fortynine percent of all of the Districts criminal filings. No other District Court recommended for new judgeships had more than 314 immigration filings. In fact. the four Districts mentioned above account for more than 60 percent of all immigration filings in fiscal year 2006. The legislation I am introducing today authorizes the ten new Federal judgeships recommended by the Judicial Conference for these four U.S. Districts. where immigration filings total more than fortynine percent of all Federal criminal filings. Based on these caseloads. we should already have given these Districts new judgeships. But to increase border security and immigration enforcement efforts. as we have over the past few years. without equipping these courts to handle the even larger immigration caseloads that they will face as a result of immigration enforcement efforts would amount to willful negligence on the part of Congress. It is imperative to equip our Federal agencies with the assets they need to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws. including the Federal District courts that try repeat immigration law violators who are charged with Federal felonies. The New Mexico District Chief Judge. Martha Vazquez. wrote me a letter in May of 2006 about the situation her District faces. Judge Vazquez wrote: As it is. the burden on Article III Judges in this District is considerable. This District ranks first among all districts in criminal filings per judgeship: 405 criminal filings compared to the national average of 87. As in all federal districts along the southwest border. the majority of cases filed in this District relate to immigration offenses under United States Code. Title 8 and drug offenses arising under Title 21. Immigration and drug cases account for eightyfive percent of the caseload in the District of New Mexico.... In fiscal year 1997. there were 240 immigration felony filings in the District of New Mexico. By fiscal year 2005. the number of immigration felony filings increased to 1.826. which is an increase of 661 percent. The Albuquerque Tribune has also documented the burden on our Southwest border District Courts. An April 17. 2006 article entitled "Judges See Ripple Effect of Policy on Immigration." stated: U.S. District Chief Judge Martha Vazquez of Santa Fe oversees a court that faces a rising caseload from illegal border crossings and related crime. And help from Washington is by no means certain. . . . From Sept. 30. 1999 to Sept. 30. 2004 (the end of the fiscal year). the caseload in the New Mexico federal district court increased 57.5 percent. from 2.804 to 4.416.