Justice Dept.'s Focus Has Shifted

While traditional civil rights cases fell, the number of defendants prosecuted for human-trafficking-related crimes rose from just two in 2000 to 65 six years later.

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Perhaps most strikingly, the department's statistics show that Justice is now in large part an immigration enforcement agency: More than 19,000 defendants were charged with immigration violations in federal district courts in 2006, surpassing every other category except drug crimes. The data compiled by TRAC indicate that federal magistrates handled and disposed of an additional 18,000 immigration cases in 2006.

Carr said the surge in immigration cases was largely caused by demands from Southwestern states to beef up enforcement along the border with Mexico. "This is a targeted -- rather than national -- emphasis in the states that are facing incredible immigration challenges," he said.

Asked about the shifts, David Laufman, a former senior Justice Department official who prosecuted some of the nation's most prominent terrorism cases in Northern Virginia, said that the FBI, after the Sept. 11 attacks, turned increasingly to state and local law enforcement agencies to pick up some of the slack in non-terrorism areas.

He also said that a portion of the increased immigration prosecutions stemmed from a strategic decision by the administration to use such cases to detain or deport terrorism-related suspects when there was not enough evidence of other crimes.

"Prevention and disruption of terrorism was a paramount priority, and immigration prosecutions became one of the government's most favored tools for neutralizing people believed to pose a security threat, especially when the government lacked admissible evidence that the individual had committed a terrorism offense," Laufman said.

Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, a liberal-leaning group that monitors judicial nominations and other justice-related issues, contends that the shifts in prosecution are part of a broad effort by the Bush administration to force the Justice Department to target individuals based on politics rather than purely on law enforcement goals.

"While torture memos and firing scandals have captured the public's attention, the politicization of the Justice Department under the Bush administration is far more widespread and insidious," Aron said in a written statement. "Michael Mukasey, if confirmed, will certainly have his work cut out for him."

Spending on all of the department's programs rose significantly after September 2001, although many showed diminished prosecutions. The department's criminal division, for instance, experienced a 29 percent gain in spending under Bush even as its prosecutions of many traditional crimes such as bank robberies and organized crime plummeted.

The department's environmental crimes section also experienced a 44 percent spike in its budget, and its staffing reached a record 40 full-time prosecutors in 2007. Yet, by 2006, the number of defendants prosecuted for environmental offenses had fallen by 12 percent.

Budgets for the 93 U.S. attorney's offices also grew, by more than 40 percent over the past six years, although many federal prosecutors say they remain short-staffed in many areas.

Gene R. Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the police chiefs' organization, said the federal government's retreat from local crime-fighting has greatly frustrated local law enforcement agencies. Federal assistance has fallen from $2.5 billion in 1997 during the Clinton administration to $1.1 billion in the Bush administration's 2008 budget proposal, according to the police group.