http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/knau/local-knau-919354.mp3
Phoenix, AZ – So far this fiscal year federal prosecutors in Arizona filed more
than 17,500 cases, five times as many as the same time five years
earlier. Drug prosecutions also are up, too. None of this
impressed Gov. Jan Brewer who has been in a war of words with the
Obama administration about what she said is the failure of the
government to secure the border. Gubernatorial press aide Paul
Senseman.
(The data suggest that the border security problem is acute in
Arizona and growing quite rapidly. And as long as narco-terrorist
drug cartels and human smugglers continue to frequently operate
in Arizona, then much more must be done to secure our border.)
But Dennis Burke, the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, said the
statistics do not represent more crime. He said they reflect the
fact he has more prosecutors to bring more cases.
(And so it allows us to look at cases that, in the past, this is
no fault of any predecessor I've had, they just didn't have the
resources. In the past you wouldn't do the case. Now you can go
back and say, look, this person has a criminal background. It's
not just a question of deporting them. This is a question of
criminally prosecuting him before he's deported.)
And Burke said more prosecutors are on the way, courtesy of a
$600 million appropriation the president just signed beefing up
Southwest border security. For Arizona Public Radio this is
Howard Fischer.