Multi-million dollar grant to help with El Paso prosecutions of human, drug traffickers
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- El Paso County leaders on Monday accepted a grant of more than $3 million from the Texas Office of the Governor-Homeland Security Grants Division, to allow the District Attorney's Office to continue prosecuting human and drug traffickers.
The money will go to the Texas Border Prosecution Unit (BPU), which was set up in 2009 to target crimes that are unique to the border.
The funding helps the 34th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, composed of El Paso, Culberson and Hudspeth Counties. It provides the funding to hire additional prosecutors whose efforts will be focused and targeted to border crimes.
"Here in El Paso, we have six prosecutors, and three paralegals that we fund. And then there are also prosecutors funded all the way down the border," said District Attorney Bill Hicks.
"The $3 million funds the prosecutors, the support staff and 15 different providers. That includes the executive director, the training director, and the different trainers that are part of the border prosecution unit," said Hicks.
"Those trainers go all up and down the border, training law enforcement and prosecutors on all of the different search and seizure issues, prosecution issues, and all of the law issues that we have in very small rural areas all the way up to the larger urban area that we have here in El Paso," he said.
Hicks said the area is seeing an increase in smuggling cases, more than in recent years.
"We're asking for some additional resources in order to hire an additional prosecutor to put on the border prosecution unit, that would help offset the resources that El Paso County is having to put towards prosecuting those smuggling cases," he said.
