SAN ANTONIO (Associated Press) October 26, 2007 — U.S. border agents plan to expand to a second portion of the Texas border a program to criminally prosecute and incarcerate all illegal immigrants as authorities look to expand the program border wide.

"This is the chief's view of the future. We're talking national," said Ramon Rivera, Border Patrol spokesman. "It sends a strong message the we're not letting illegal border crossers have a free ride."

In late 2005, U.S. Customs and Border Protection began sending nearly all illegal immigrants caught in its Del Rio sector, a 210-mile stretch covering the middle of Texas' southern border, for federal prosecution. Charged with illegal entry, they can be sentenced for 2 weeks to 6 months in jail.

The program expanded late last year to western Arizona and will start in Laredo on Wednesday, Rivera said.

Future expansion will be based on where border officials believe immigrant traffic is moving in response to new crackdowns, he said, but the agent who oversees most of the Arizona border indicated to a congressional subcommittee this week that he hopes to add the program to the remainder of that state's border.

Before the so-called "zero tolerance zones," illegal immigrants from Mexico without criminal histories or too many previous crossing attempts were processed and quickly returned to Mexico voluntarily. Those from other countries could be held to face deportation but were often simply told to show up for a court date, which they rarely made.

"What we're doing now is very effective, and we're happy the way it's turning out," Rivera said, who noted a 46 percent reduction in border apprehensions in the Del Rio area since the zero-tolerance policy went into effect.

Border Patrol only counts the apprehensions it makes; it's unclear how many people actually cross.

But in western Arizona, the number of apprehensions plummeted nearly 70 percent after immigration and federal prosecutors began locking up illegal immigrants late last year, said Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Jeremy Schappell, who credits the program along with National Guardsman patrols and new sections of the border fence for the decline.

Most everyone caught in the Yuma sector, which covers about 125 miles of western Arizona and far eastern California, is prosecuted, he said. Exceptions are made for pregnant women and families with children that would be separated if the parents were incarcerated.

But Marisol Perez, a staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, questioned whether such enforcement-only programs were the best use of resources.

"Is this an effective response to those who have a desire and who we want to come here and work and contribute to our economic base?" she said.

Perez acknowledged illegally entering the United States is a crime but said providing a way for people to come work legally is a far better solution than jail time.

She also said federal court resources would be better focused on drug trafficking and the sometimes ruthless smugglers.

The implementation of zero tolerance policies can strain the federal court system, adding thousands of additional cases to dockets in relatively small communities.

In Del Rio, the increased prosecutions meant cases were running through a magistrate's courtroom at a pace of one a minute.

A similar program in eastern New Mexico that attempted to detain all migrants using the immigration court system — which is separate from the U.S. District Court — ended after just three months last year. The Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facility in El Paso got too crowded to continue housing so many migrants, said El Paso Border Patrol spokesman Doug Moiser.

The federal courthouse in Laredo, which is already so busy that visiting judges regularly come in to help manage the caseload, will get even busier next week when the zero tolerance policy goes into effect along the 171-mile section covered by the Laredo sector.

Rosie Rodriguez, the deputy-in-charge for the Laredo court clerk's office, said the two full-time magistrates sometimes handle as many as 100 cases a day. Most of the cases in the court in Laredo, the busiest inland port city in America, are related to immigration and drug smuggling.