The New Mexico district climbed in April to No. 2 on the list of per-capita prosecutions of immigration-related crimes by the U.S. Department of Justice.
With 217 prosecutions, the New Mexico U.S. Attorney’s Office trailed only the Southern California office in per-capita prosecutions in April 2008. A year earlier, New Mexico was fifth on the list, and it was also fifth five years ago. Following New Mexico in April 2008 were the west and southern districts of Texas, the Arizona district, the south Florida district and the east Arkansas district.
A call to the U.S. Attorney’s Office about the increase in prosecution activity in New Mexico was not immediately returned.
The Justice Department statistics were published by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse and can be found here.
Overall, the number of Justice Department prosecutions of immigration-related crimes increased 14.4 percent from March to April. Prosecutions rose 71.8 percent from April 2007 to April 2008 and 167.3 percent from April 2003 to April 2008.
“The substantial growth in these cases is partly related to increases in the matters filed in U.S. magistrate courts,” the report states. “If magistrate cases are excluded and only federal district court cases are counted, the overall increase in prosecutions is 13.8 percent instead of 167.3 percent. The evidence suggests that part of the difference may be the result of improvements in the recording of the magistrate cases by the Justice Department.”