U.S. to step up prosecution of Mexico border crime

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - The United States is hiring more federal prosecutors to help crack down on gunrunning and the smuggling of drugs and illegal immigrants over the porous U.S.-Mexico border, officials said on Thursday.

Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip said the Justice Department would provide funding for an additional 64 assistant U.S. attorneys to target crime along the nearly 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border.

The prosecutors, together with 35 additional contract support staff, are to be allocated from Southern California to south Texas and will work to curb smuggling over the border.

Illegal immigration is a hot topic in this U.S. election year and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have pledged to do more to secure the border.

Mexican authorities in cities near the U.S. border are also battling rampant violence linked to warring drug cartels.

"The ability to control who and what comes into and out of our country is one of the most important attributes of a sovereign government, and being able to do that is vital to our nation's security," Filip told a news conference.

"We anticipate that these attorneys will help target drug smugglers, gunrunners ... and various immigration violators including human traffickers," he added.

Last year, U.S. federal police nabbed more than 870,000 illegal immigrants crossing over the border from Mexico and seized thousands of tons of narcotics.

Law enforcement agents also seized large numbers of guns and quantities of ammunition acquired in the United States and smuggled south over the border to arm drug gangs in Mexico.

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Peter Cooney)