‘Practically zero’

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said in a statement that 30 federal prosecutors have been added to the Southwestern border to handle the rising number of immigration and border drug cases and noted that securing more prosecutions would require hiring more judges and public defenders and building more courtrooms and jails.

Authorities also note that illegal immigrants who make it past the border are not necessarily home free. In the past year, immigration officials have conducted numerous raids on workplaces.

Boyd noted that the Border Patrol can charge illegal immigrants with civil violations punishable by fines of $50 to $250. But Border Patrol officials said most Mexican immigrants are not sent before a judge to be fined.

"The majority are offered and granted ... voluntary removal back to Mexico," said Xavier Rios, an assistant chief Border Patrol agent in Washington. "We don't seek to prosecute everyone."

Tackling the high-priority cases
Boyd said the Justice Department pursues charges if a case involves human smugglers, if an immigrant has a felony record in the U.S., or if he has been deported before.

"When you consider the other high-priority laws that the department is charged with enforcing, such as drug trafficking, firearms offenses, violent crime, national security, child pornography, and corporate fraud, the department is achieving a balance of immigration enforcement with other important areas," Boyd said.

Last month an undated internal Justice Department memo released as part of the congressional investigation of the firings of eight U.S. attorneys revealed that in Texas, most illegal crossers have to be caught at least six times before their case will be forwarded to prosecutors.

Crackdown in some regions
Still, some border regions have decided to crack down.

Along the Border Patrol's 210-mile Del Rio sector in West Texas, any illegal immigrant arrested since 2006 is jailed and prosecuted, under a federal project called Operation Streamline. It was briefly repeated along a narrow stretch of border in New Mexico. And Maricopa County, Ariz., officials are using a state anti-smuggling law to prosecute both suspected smugglers and the immigrants who pay them.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, a former state judge, said that the prosecution rates amount to "dereliction of duty" and that the government should spend whatever it takes to lock up and deport every illegal immigrant.

"Prosecutors should not have the discretion to prosecute some people for violations of the law and not others, that's discriminatory," he said.

But Iliana Holguin, executive director of the El Paso Catholic Church's Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services, said that would mean the government would have to "massively increase the size of the court system, or it is going to collapse on itself under its own weight."

Holguin suggested changing the immigration laws instead to make it easier for workers to enter the United States legally.

"It's not a light decision to come to the U.S. illegally," she said. "If there was a legal way to fill these labor shortages or reunite families, they would do it."

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