Western District of Texas Covers Huge Area of West Texas
The Western District of Texas is one of four U.S. Judicial Districts in Texas. The Western District's main headquarters is in San Antonio. The Southern, Northern and Eastern Districts are located in Houston, Dallas, and Tyler, respectively. The Western District is divided into several divisions: El Paso, Del Rio, Pecos, Midland, and Waco, with one or more U.S. District Judges assigned to each division. The Midland and Pecos divisions are 300-plus miles from San Antonio. There is even a courthouse and U.S. Magistrate in Alpine, although the U.S. District Judge usually holds court in Pecos to consider Alpine cases. Waco is in the Western District only by chance, as it is in central Texas between Austin and Dallas.
Until the explosion of immigration and drug cases in far west Texas, there was only a Midland division and an El Paso division. In the nineties the Pecos U.S. Courthouse was built and a division created to deal with the highway drug stops, immigration cases, and U.S. Customs stops at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint on IH 10 west of El Paso.
There is now an imposing Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in tiny Alpine, recently constructed to handle the onslaught of immigration (now under the lofty title of Homeland Security) and drug cases. The U.S. Attorney's office and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) are housed in a fortress-like building surrounded by a high wire fence, next door to the new courthouse.
I regularly appear in Alpine, Pecos, and Midland in defense of clients charged with federal
crimes. Immigration cases are usually handled by the public defender. But I often handle other federal cases in these areas, and have become quite familiar with these remote towns with the shiny new federal buildings.
