[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 82 (Thursday, June 6, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5947-S5948]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        BORDER DRUG PROSECUTIONS

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, 2 weeks ago the Senate agreed to an 
amendment to the budget resolution urging the Attorney General to 
ensure that drug prosecutions along the United States-Mexico border are 
vigorously prosecuted.
  In the interest of time and cooperation in moving the budget forward, 
I did not oppose the amendment. However, I strongly disagreed with 
several findings which imply that the current U.S. attorney for the 
Southern District of California routinely failed to prosecute major 
drug cases. The source of information for those findings was an article 
in the Los Angeles Times that made several dubious claims about drug 
prosecutions in the Southern District.
  After the Senate passed the amendment, the Los Angeles Times 
published a lengthy correction that retracted many of the charges made 
in the original article. Specifically, the correction

[[Page S5948]]

notes that the newspaper ``misstated federal guidelines for prosecuting 
[drug] seizures.'' The article claimed--and those claims were repeated 
in the Senate amendment--that no prosecutions were made for the 
possession of less than 125 pounds of marijuana. The Times now 
acknowledges that several prosecutions have occurred in cases involving 
smaller quantities.
  The correction states that examples used in the original article 
``contained incomplete or inaccurate information.'' Because this 
information was the basis of Senate amendment, it too should be 
considered incomplete and inaccurate.
  I thank the Chair for the opportunity to correct the Record.
  I ask that the correction be printed in the Record.
  The material follows:

        Times Article Misstated Guidelines on Border Drug Cases

       A Times article disclosing the release of hundreds of 
     Mexicans detained at the border on suspicion of drug 
     smuggling misstated federal guidelines for prosecuting 
     seizures.
       The May 12 article--which touched off partisan political 
     fighting over the Clinton administration's drug policy--
     inaccurately described a program under which federal 
     authorities since 1994 have sent more than 1,000 drug 
     suspects back to Mexico.
       The guidelines state that prosecutors may decide not to 
     press charges if five criteria are met. The suspect must be a 
     first-time offender and a Mexican national and be caught with 
     less than 125 pounds of marijuana. There also must be 
     insufficient evidence of criminal intent, and the suspect 
     must have little or no information about organized smuggling. 
     Those suspects who meet all five criteria could be sent back 
     to Mexico, and their green cards or border crossing cards 
     confiscated.
       The article, which was based on interviews with federal 
     officials, did not list all five criteria and incorrectly 
     implied that marijuana cases involving less than 125 pounds 
     were not prosecuted. When The Times later obtained a copy of 
     the internal guidelines, they were reported, as were 
     statistics showing that the U.S. attorney's office in San 
     Diego and the local district attorney have prosecuted 
     hundreds of cases involving less than 125 pounds of 
     marijuana.
       In discussing the weight guidelines, the article 
     erroneously indicated that it applies to U.S. citizens, as 
     well as Mexican nationals, and a number of cases involving 
     U.S. citizens were cited to make various points.
       The examples illustrating lack of prosecution contained 
     incomplete or inaccurate information, because some records 
     pertaining to those cases could not be found or were not 
     publicly available. The U.S. attorney's office, citing 
     privacy concerns, had declined to reveal specific reasons for 
     rejecting prosecution.
       In one misreported case, a U.S. citizen with arrests in 
     January and February was charged in both instances, and 
     prosecutors say he will be charged in a third case pending a 
     competency hearing. A U.S. citizen with a prior smuggling 
     conviction was charged following an arrest in March with 68 
     pounds of marijuana. In another case, in which charges were 
     dismissed against a woman defendant in a 158-pound cocaine 
     seizure, the article should have added that her codefendant 
     said the woman had no knowledge of the drugs. He was 
     subsequently sentenced to prison.
       In all, federal officials say, four of the eight cases in 
     the article resulted in felony charges. Of the other four, 
     the district attorney in San Diego rejected one case for 
     insufficient evidence, the U.S. attorney rejected two on the 
     same grounds and the investigation continues in the other.
       ``We prosecute all border drug cases in which we believe 
     charges are warranted and can be proved beyond all reasonable 
     doubt,'' said U.S. Atty. Alan D. Bersin.

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