Photograph By HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHY
By David Diaz
Texas Border Business
Prosecutors and other law enforcement leaders along the Texas-Mexico border will have a stronger weapon against criminals, especially those tied into the deadly plots of Mexican drug cartels, under legislation by Rep. Óscar Longoria, Jr., D-La Joya, which was unanimously approved by the Texas House of Representatives on Thursday, April 9.
His measure, House Bill 12, includes Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, as a co-author of the legislation. HB 12, which still must receive Senate approval and signed into law by the governor, would increase the ability of the Border Prosecution Unit to better coordinate efforts by local and state authorities to fight Mexican drug lords by improving on the Texas side of the border the prosecution of crimes and criminal enterprises, especially in more rural border counties, associated with drug cartels.
“I am extremely pleased to announce that House Bill 12 has been voted out of the House,” Longoria said. “This legislation is important because it places the Border Prosecution Unit into statute, which better allows local officials to prosecute crimes, such as drug smuggling, murder, kidnapping, extortion, money laundering and human trafficking.”
HB 12 would formalize the practices and procedures that the Border Prosecution Unit has been implementing successfully since 2009, when Gov. Rick Perry created the unit to aid in border security operations, according to the bill analysis by the House Research Organization, which is the research-arm of the House of Representatives.
The House Research Organization, in its bill analysis of HB 12, also noted that border crime affects the entire state, but HB 12 would help prevent criminals from spreading deeper into Texas by stopping crime as close to the border as possible. But it also shielded the border region from claims that it is crime-ridden. “The border region has a low crime rate compared with the rest of the state,” the House Research Organization found. “El Paso has one of the lowest crime rates in the country compared with other cities of its size, and the Rio Grande Valley is safer than most U.S. cities.”
The Border Prosecution Unit, or “BPU” as it has come to be known, is a history-making initiative involving the Texas Department of Public Safety and each of the district attorneys in the border jurisdictions of Texas, according to District Attorney Carlos Omar García of Jim Wells County. Stretching from El Paso to Brownsville and covering 49 counties along and adjacent to the Rio Grande River, the Border Prosecution Unit encompasses a network of 17 Texas district attorney offices, including Garcia’s 79th Judicial District. In each of these offices, an assistant district attorney is assigned to handle a specialized caseload of border crime cases, García explains on his official web site. “The Border Prosecution Unit is vital in helping prosecutors screen cases, secure indictments and bring accused criminals to trial,” Longoria noted. “This bill will give our prosecutors the resources and support they need to ensure that those who enslave, exploit and endanger others are put behind bars where they belong.”
