Rebecca Hains tells WCVB-TV the Transportation Security Administration agent took her cupcake, telling her its frosting was “gel-like” enough to constitute a security risk. The TSA has restrictions on taking liquids and gels onto flights to prevent them from being used as explosives.

Hains says she had passed through security at Boston’s Logan International Airport with two cupcakes packaged in jars. But she says she was stopped Wednesday on her return from Las Vegas with one of them.

TSA spokesman Nico Melendez says the agency is reviewing the situation. He says passengers are allowed to take cakes and cupcakes through checkpoints.

Wildrick Guerrier, 34, was sent back to Haiti on Jan. 20. He became severely ill while being held at a police station as is customary for deportees to Haiti. He died Jan. 29 and was buried in Haiti without an autopsy. Other deportees reported that Guerrier began suffering from diarrhea and vomiting after he tried to help other sick detainees.

After his death, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ordered a review of his medical care while in U.S. immigration custody.

“This medical records review failed to reveal any underlying abnormalities that may have contributed to his sudden death upon deportation to Haiti,” the review states.

The attorney representing Guerrier’s fiancee said Tuesday that ICE’s conclusion makes his death all the more shocking.

“If Mr. Guerrier was healthy when he was deported, this is definitive proof of the extreme nature of the danger faced by deportees sent back to Haiti. The United States must not deport people back to Haiti when we know that they will be detained in unsanitary conditions that spread cholera and other life-threatening diseases,” said Rebecca Sharpless, director of the immigration clinic at the University of Miami School of Law.

The Associated Press obtained the medical review and other records from Guerrier’s 109 days in immigration custody through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Guerrier was among the first Haitians deported by the U.S. since a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti’s capital in January 2010.

ICE has said it expects to deport this year 700 Haitians convicted of crimes such as homicide, kidnapping, sexual assault, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, embezzlement, money laundering and extortion. Thus far, 228 Haitians with criminal convictions have been deported, in coordination with Haiti’s government and consistent with U.S. policies, ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said Tuesday.

According to Homeland Security records, Guerrier was taken into ICE custody Oct. 4 after serving a sentence for a 2009 conviction for a charge of possessing a firearm by a convicted felon.

ICE Health Service Corps officials reviewed Guerrier’s medical records from detention facilities in Florida and Louisiana.

Guerrier’s physical and mental health remained normal throughout his detention, according to the records. A Jan. 20 medical summary showed Guerrier did not suffer from any current medical problems nor required special care while in transit.

The ICE review noted that in the week before his deportation, Guerrier joined 22 Haitian detainees who refused to eat meals served at the Louisiana detention center for six days. The detainees discontinued their protest Jan. 17 and a physician assistant who evaluated Guerrier reported he showed no signs of distress though he refused to have his vital signs monitored.

Immigration rights advocates, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and prominent Roman Catholic bishops have argued that conditions in Haiti, where a cholera outbreak has killed more than 6,200 people since October, make it inhumane and unsafe to deport people there.

Illustration: Immigrant with Higher Education to USA

This newly-released data has broad implications for an immigration debate that is driven largely by myths and stereotypes of less-skilled, unauthorized immigrants while devoting scant attention to the high-skilled end of the labor spectrum. To effectively reform the U.S. immigration system to the benefit of the U.S. economy and workers, both high-skilled and less-skilled immigrants must be part of the discussion and the debate must be guided by more facts and less political rhetoric.

As the report points out “immigrants are now one-in-seven U.S. residents and almost one-in-six workers. They are a significant presence in various sectors of the economy such as construction and hospitality on the low-skill end, and information technology and health care on the high-skill end. While border enforcement and illegal immigration are a focal point, longer-term U.S. global competitiveness rests on the ability of immigrants and their children to thrive economically and to contribute to the nation’s productivity.”

President Obama has caught on to this reality and begun challenging Americans to think about immigration as an engine for innovation and growth.  The White House blueprint for “Building a 21^st Century Immigration System” notes that “Immigrants started 25 percent of the highest-growth companies between 1990-2005, and these companies directly employ an estimated 220,000 people inside the U.S.”  Moreover, “immigrant business owners generate $67 billion of the $577 billion in U.S. business income.” And “in the 1990s alone, skilled immigrants helped boost GDP by between 1.4 and 2.4 percent.”

The Brookings report is an important analysis of the immigrant workforce in America. It shows that America continues to attract the best and the brightest from around the world.  However, we can and must do more to continue this trend for the sake of our economy.

To view the report from the Brookings Institution and other IPC resources see:

• The Geography of Immigrant Skills: Educational Profiles of Metropolitan Areas (The Brookings Institution, June 2011)

• Immigrants in the U.S. Labor Force (IPC Fact Check, August 4, 2010)

• The U.S. Economy Still Needs Highly Skilled Foreign Workers (IPC Fact Check, March 30, 2011)

• Why Immigrants Can Drive the Green Economy: The Need for New Policy, Vision, and Story Telling (IPC Perspectives, June 2010)

For more information contact Wendy Sefsaf at wsefsaf@immcouncil.org or 202-507-7524

Somali-born Christmas Tree Bomber in Oregon - Illustration

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:40 p.m. just after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would detonate the explosives but instead brought federal agents and Portland police swooping down on him.

Yelling “Allahu Akbar!” _ Arabic for “God is great!” _ Mohamud tried to kick agents and police as they closed in, according to prosecutors.

The explosives were duds supplied by undercover agents as part of the sting and the public was never in danger, prosecutors said.

“This defendant’s chilling determination is a stark reminder that there are people _ even here in Oregon _ who are determined to kill Americans,” U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton said. “We have no reason to believe there is any continuing threat arising from this case.”

Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in Corvallis, was charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. He’s scheduled for a court appearance Monday. Few details were available about him late Friday.

There was no word from authorities if the suspect had any ties to other Americans recently accused of trying to carry out attacks on U.S. soil, including alleged efforts in May by a Pakistan-born man to set off a car bomb near Times Square or another Pakistan-born Virginia resident accused last month in a bomb plot to kill commuters.

Holton released federal court documents that show the sting operation began in June after an undercover agent learned that Mohamud had been in contact with an “unindicted associate” in Pakistan’s northwest, a frontier region where Al Qaida and Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents are strong.

“The complaint alleges that Mohamud attempted to detonate what he believed to be a vehicle bomb at a crowded holiday event,” said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. “Law enforcement action was able to thwart his efforts and ensure no one was harmed.”

According to a federal complaint, Mohamud was in regular email contact with the “unindicted associate’ in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier starting in August 2009.

The complaint states that in December 2009 Mohamud and the associate used coded language in an email in which the FBI believes Mohamud discussed traveling to Pakistan to prepare for “violent jihad.”

In the months that followed Mohamud made ‘multiple efforts” to contact another “undicted associate” to arrange travel to Pakistan but had a faulty email address for that person.

Last June an FBI agent contacted Mohamud “under the guise of being affiliated with the first associate.”

Mohamud and the undercover agent agreed to meet in Portland on July 30. At that meeting, the undercover agent and Mohamud “discussed violent jihad,” according to the court document.

Mohamud told the agent he wanted to set off explosives at the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square, an event that occurred on Friday.

On Friday, an undercover agent and Mohamud drove to downtown Portland in a white van that carried six 55-gallon drums with detonation cords and plastic caps, but all of them were inert, the complaint states.

They got out of the van and walked to meet another undercover agent, who drove to Union Station, the Portland train station, where Mohamud was given a cell phone that he thought would blow up the van, according to the complaint.

Mohamud dialed the phone agents had given him, and was told the bomb did not detonate. The undercover agents suggested he get out of the car and try again to improve the signal, when he did, he was arrested, the complaint said.

Omar Jamal, first secretary to the Somali mission to the United Nations, condemned the plot and urged Somalis to cooperate with police and the FBI.

“Talk to them and tell them what you know so we can all be safe,” Jamal said.

U.S. authorities have been struggling against a recent spate of terror plans by U.S. citizens or residents.

In the Times Square plot, Faisal Shazhad allegedly tried to set off a car bomb at a bustling street corner. U.S. authorities had no intelligence about Shahzad’s plot until the smoking car turned up in Manhattan.

Late last month, Farooque Ahmed, 34, of Virginia was arrested and accused of casing Washington-area subway stations in what he thought was an al-Qaida plot to bomb and kill commuters. Similar to the Portland sting, the bombing plot was a ruse conducted over the past six months by federal officials.

Also in October, a Hawaii man was arrested and accused of making false statements to the FBI about his plans to attend terrorist training in Pakistan.

In August, a Virginia man was caught trying to leave the country to fight with an al-Qaida-affiliated group in Somalia.

Buju Banton at the Raggamufin Festival in Long Beach

The Tampa Tribune reports that Banton’s attorney notified the court Tuesday of the offer. The property is valued at $350,000. Stephen Marley is a Grammy winner who beat Banton to win for best reggae album this year.

Last month, a judge declared a mistrial for Banton. He is accused of conspiring to buy cocaine from an undercover officer.

Banton has been held without bail since his December arrest. A federal judge has said he would allow him to be released pending his next trial under various conditions. A Wednesday hearing is scheduled.

If he is released, Banton’s attorneys must ask an immigration judge to issue a similar order.

Coombs, 43, born in Jamaica, immigrated to the United States legally as a child with his family. He signed up to serve his adopted nation for six years _ first in Japan and the Philippines, then in the Persian Gulf during the first war with Iraq.

Up to 8,000 non-citizens enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces every year and serve alongside American troops. As of May 2010, there were 16,966 non-citizens on active duty. The military does not allow illegal immigrants to enlist.

If non-citizens die while serving, they are given citizenship and a military funeral. If they live and get in trouble with the law, as Coombs did, they can get caught in the net of a 1996 immigration law that greatly expanded the list of crimes for which non-citizens can be deported.

“As far as I was concerned, I was a citizen,” said Coombs, whose soft-spoken, introspective nature contrast with his physical presence. Coombs stands 6 foot 5 (1.96 meters) and weighs more than 260 pounds (118 kilograms) _ a gentle giant, according to his fiancee, Robyn Sword.

Now advocates of non-citizen servicemen and women are trying to change that. Attorneys are taking cases like Coombs’ to court, arguing that an immigrant who serves in the Armed Forces should be considered a U.S. national and protected from deportation.

“These are people who served us _ whether they are model human beings or not,” said Coombs’ attorney, Craig Shagin of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “They served in our uniforms, in our wars. If they were POWs, they’d be considered American prisoners.”

Democratic Rep. Bob Filner of California., chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, is looking into potential changes to the law so immigrants who serve in the military can avoid deportation.

“You come back from Iraq or Afghanistan today, you have put yourself on the line for this country,” said Filner. “An incredible number of kids come back with an injury or illness that puts them in trouble with the law. To simply have these people deported is not a good way to thank them for their service.”

Advocates estimate that thousands of veterans have been deported or are in detention. Government officials say they have no tally but plan to begin tracking the numbers.

The push comes as criminal courts are increasingly listening to arguments for leniency for veterans.

So-called veterans courts, which give them specialized treatment, now number more than 30, with a dozen more planned.

Next month, new U.S. Sentencing Commission rules will make it possible for federal judges to consider a criminal defendant’s military service and mental and emotional condition to issue a lesser prison sentence. The rules, however, would not apply to immigration judges.

Most immigrants serve with distinction. The Center for Naval Analyses, a federally funded research and development center for the Navy and the Marine Corps, found that non-citizens are far more likely to complete their enlistment obligations successfully than their U.S.-born counterparts.

Coombs was one who did not make the grade.

He spent 10 months in the Persian Gulf and lost friends to combat, he said. After the war, he felt depressed and anxious. His family was far away in New York, and he said “whining” to fellow Marines didn’t seem an option.

Instead, he got involved with drugs, and he got caught.

In 1992, he was court-martialed for possession of cocaine and marijuana with the intent to distribute, and was given 18 months of confinement and a dishonorable discharge.

He continued to struggle with drugs.

“Things would be going well, then something would happen,” he said.

He got married, and that helped. When his wife died in 2001 of diabetes-related complications, he started smoking marijuana again.

In 2008, he was arrested for selling marijuana to an undercover officer while working as a bouncer in an Orange County bar. He spent eight months in state prison.

“I don’t want to make excuses. I made mistakes. I thought I knew the consequences _ I served my time,” he said in a telephone interview.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement found that his criminal convictions made him eligible for deportation, and he was turned over to ICE after serving his sentence. He has been held in a San Diego immigration detention center for 22 months and is appealing to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court.

Coombs was stunned to realize he could be forced to leave the country for his crimes.

“This is the only life I’ve known,” he said. “The only time I left this country was when I was deployed overseas. This is my home.”

On the other side of the country, Dardar Paye is appealing his deportation case to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Paye came to the U.S. from war-torn Liberia as a 13-year-old. He joined the Army in 1998, serving in Kuwait as part of Operation Desert Fox and then in a NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. He returned to New Jersey, where his family lives, to spend another year and a half with the Army National Guard.

In 2008, he was convicted of six weapons-related offenses, including two involving firearms dealing, and served time in federal prison. Now, like Coombs, he is facing deportation and is feeling betrayed.

“When I was in Kuwait, in Kosovo, I was like everyone else who was there, putting their lives on the line,” said Paye, who in the Army was an armored vehicle crewman. “Now I feel like they just used me for what they wanted, and now they’re throwing me away.”

Advocates and immigration attorneys say that before the 1996 Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, few immigrant veterans were deported, because immigration authorities could take their service into consideration.

The law added crimes such as drug possession for sale to the list of serious crimes that could lead to deportation of a legal immigrant.

“Drugs, anger management, weapons charges, that’s what a lot of vets are getting caught for, and there is no relief,” said Margaret Stock, a recently retired Army reservist and immigration attorney who taught at the United States Military Academy at West Point. “The 1996 law really put the nails in their coffin.”

Coombs’ attorneys, Shagin and Heather Boxeth of San Diego, California, who have represented or advised immigrant veterans in similar straits, estimate up to 4,000 veterans who served as long ago as World War II are now in immigration detention or have been deported, but acknowledge that there are no hard numbers.

ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley said identifying and removing dangerous criminals from the country is an agency priority _ and that the cases of people with prior military service are carefully reviewed.

Meantime, the military has started to offer a fast-track to citizenship to immigrants currently serving. Now, most joining the Army can expect to be citizens by the end of basic training, said Stock. Other branches are expected to join the effort by the end of the year.

That help doesn’t extend to those who have already served such as Paye and Coombs.

“If I had died,” said Coombs, they would have made me a citizen, given me a military funeral, and given the flag to my mom. But I didn’t die. Here I am. I just want another chance.”

A Chester County judge offered 29-year-old Makeda Jahnesta Marley a choice: a shorter prison term or a long stint on probation. She opted for the latter and risks being jailed if she violates her probation terms.

Marley was arrested in 2008 after police say they found her removing plants from her basement when officers arrived on a domestic-dispute call. She pleaded guilty in September.

Marley’s probation calls for her to undergo random drug tests and stay away from drug users.

Her attorney, Thomas Schindler, tells the West Chester Daily Local News that won’t be a problem. He called growing marijuana an “aberration.”

Man Behind Bars

Abrorkhodja Askarkhodjaev, 31, was facing more than 100 counts related to a scheme to lure foreigners to Kansas City with the promise of good jobs and a better life, but instead turned them into slave workers who were threatened with having their temporary visas pulled or having harm done to their families.

The enterprise illegally made more than $6 million, prosecutors said.

Opening statements in Askarkhodjaev’s trial had been set to start Wednesday, but he decided to change his plea after a jury had been selected. During a recess of several hours prosecutors worked up the plea bargain.

Askarkhodjaev entered his plea late Wednesday _ after fainting while standing in front of U.S. District Judge Ortrie Smith. He was taken from the courtroom, but brought back to continue the plea hearing about 20 minutes later after receiving nourishment.

He pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, one count of fraud in foreign labor contracting, one count of identity theft and one count of evasion of corporate income tax. As part of the plea, he will serve at least 10 years in prison and up to 12 years if he doesn’t cooperate with the government in future proceedings.

“Abror is pleased to have this case resolved,” his attorney, Willie Epps Jr., told The Associated Press after the hearing. “He’s very sorry for the people he hurt, and he’s praying for those individuals and their families. He hopes in time he will be forgiven.”

Eleven other people were charged with being involved in the ring, which was prosecuted under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corruption Act, or RICO, most commonly associated with organized crime cases. Eight of those defendants pleaded guilty, two fled the country and haven’t been brought back to face the charges, and one is scheduled to go to trial on Monday.

Askarkhodjaev owned and operated Giant Labor, a labor-leasing company, and controlled a dozen other businesses that filed fraudulent applications for foreign workers. The other defendants held positions with Giant Labor or the other companies, according to the indictment.

Members of the ring, which operated from 2001 until the spring of 2009, used false identification to create the companies and open dozens of bank accounts for them, prosecutors said.

The workers, mainly from the Philippines, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, paid thousands of dollars to have Giant Labor bring them to the U.S. and get them temporary visas. But once they arrived, they were stuck in small, sparsely furnished apartments, had no access to their mail and were charged so many fees that sometimes instead of getting paid on payday, they owed the company money.

Prosecutors said the workers became trapped because they couldn’t afford to leave, and those who did try to get out were threatened with legal action or told harm would come to their families.

Giant Labor, Crystal Management Inc. and Five Star Cleaning applied for more than 1,000 fraudulent work visas without being required to identify who would be using them, prosecutors said.

Once the visas were approved and the workers arrived in Kansas City, Giant Labor used them to fill labor contracts in Missouri, Kansas, Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, South Carolina and Wyoming, prosecutors said.

The Yes on 19 campaign says it has bought $200,000 worth of airtime in Los Angeles to run the ad released Monday.

The 30-second spot features former San Jose police Chief Joseph McNamara, one of several mostly retired law enforcement officials campaigning for Proposition 19.

McNamara calls banning marijuana a failure and says the measure will raise tax revenue and keep pot from children by regulating the drug like alcohol.

Opponents say the law is too poorly written to tax or regulate marijuana effectively.

The measure’s main sponsor, Richard Lee, asked supporters Monday for another $100,000 to keep the ad running through Election Day.

Haitian-born recording artist Wyclef Jean, confirmed rumors on Wednesday, August 4, that he planned to run for president of Haiti.  The following day he filed papers. Unfortunately, election officials found him ineligible to run for office.  While officials did not disclose the reasons Jean could not run for office, it is assumed that he could not run because he failed to meet the residency requirement.
With Jean apparently out of the race, there remains a crowded field of approximately three dozen candidates which include two former prime ministers and Raymond Joseph, the latter Jean’s uncle and a former ambassador.  Jean was to run for the Viv Ansanm (which translates as “live together”) party.
The winner of the race will succeed outgoing President René Préval, who is not eligible to run again due to term limits.
The election is scheduled for Sunday, November 28, 2010. A candidate will need to capture at least 50% of the vote to win outright or face a run-off.

Badu, who’s from Dallas, got out of a vehicle March 13 and did a walking striptease for her “Window Seat” music video. The video ended with a nude Badu acting like she was shot and falling to the ground.

Police in April cited her for disorderly conduct after a witness made a sworn complaint. A number of children were among the tourists and other apparent random pedestrians seen on the video.

Dallas city spokesman Frank Librio says Badu paid the fine Friday

“The federal government is taking an important step to reassert its authority over immigration policy in the United States, said Benjamin Johnson, Executive Director of the American Immigration Council. “While a legal challenge by the Department of Justice won’t resolve the public’s frustration with our broken immigration system, it will seek to define and protect the federal government’s constitutional authority to manage immigration.”

Although states have always played a role in federal immigration enforcement, over the last 10 years more and more states have chosen to impose their local policies, priorities, and politics on our national immigration system. America can only have one immigration system, and the federal government must make clear where states’ authority begins and where it ends. The federal government must assert its authority to establish a uniform immigration policy that it can be held accountable for. In the current environment it is unclear who is responsible for setting immigration enforcement priorities and who is responsible for their success or failure.

Nominated by President Barack Obama, Birotte is the first black U.S. Attorney to the post, which makes him the top federal attorney in the Central District of the U.S. Department of Justice, an area that includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

Birotte, the 43-year-old – son of Haitian immigrants, had this to say after the swearing-in, “Becoming U.S. Attorney was the opportunity of a lifetime, an incredible gift that comes with awesome responsibility.”

In his remarks – the newly appointed U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte highlighted several priorities for the office, including white-collar crime, public corruption, violent crime and terrorism.  And above all, the office must focus on being “justice drive”.

“Justice driven means that we must maintain the highest standards of integrity, fairness and excellence that comes with working for the Department of Justice,” Birotte said.  “Justice driven is not negotiable, do the right thing, the right way all the time,” he added.

U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter, Jr. administered the oath of office to Birotte, and California Court of Appeal Justice Nora M. Manella, a former U.S. Attorney who hired Birotte as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in 1995, spoke at the event.

Birotte, who worked for the Los Angeles Police Commission – five civilians who oversee the operations of the agency – had been inspector general since 2003 and served as assistant inspector general from 2001 to 2003.

From 1995 to 1999, he was a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office he now heads.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office, which currently employs 275 attorneys, serves more than 18 million residents in Southern California. It is the nation’s largest federal prosecutors’ office after the District of Columbia, which handles both federal and non-federal crimes in Washington.

Birotte graduated from Tufts University in 1987 and the Pepperdine University School of Law 1991. He started his legal career as a deputy public defender for Los Angeles County, a job he held from 1991 to 1995.

The tensions finally spilled over this month with passage of the nation’s toughest law against illegal immigration, a measure that has put Arizona at the center of the heated debate over how to deal with the millions of people who sneak into the U.S. every year.

A number of factors combined to produce the law: a heavily conservative Legislature, the ascent of a Republican governor, anger over the federal government’s failure to secure the border, and growing anxiety over crime that reached a fever pitch last month with the slaying of an Arizona rancher, apparently by an illegal immigrant.

“The public wants something done. They’re tired of it,” said state Sen. Russell Pearce, who sponsored the legislation. “They’ve seen the ineptness and the malfeasance on the part of the government, and they’re frustrated.”

The new law makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal.

Critics warned that the law could result in racial profiling and other abuses, and they are planning a legal challenge and a November referendum to overturn the measure. Supporters of the law say it is a commendable effort to combat what is fast becoming a scourge in the U.S.

Arizona is the biggest gateway into the U.S. for illegal immigrants. The state is home to an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants _ a population larger than that of entire cities such as Cleveland, St. Louis and New Orleans.

The Republican-dominated Legislature has backed a series of tough immigration measures in the past decade, only to have the most aggressive efforts thwarted by then-Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat.

But the political stars aligned this year for the GOP. President Barack Obama appointed Napolitano to his Cabinet, clearing the way for Republican Secretary of State Jan Brewer to take over as governor. The GOP made a headlong rush back into the immigration debate, and Brewer signed the bill last week.

The law reflects frustration with what many lawmakers see as inaction by the federal government.

“While the Bush administration dropped the ball on border security and illegal immigration, the Obama administration can’t even find it,” said GOP state Rep. John Kavanagh.

He said lawmakers also felt compelled to act because more immigrants will come to the U.S. as the economy improves and there is a “smell of amnesty in the air” under the Obama administration.

Over the past three years, Border Patrol agents have made 990,000 arrests of immigrants crossing the border illegally in Arizona, or an average of 900 a day. The figures represent 45 percent of all arrests of illegal immigrants along U.S. borders.

Authorities routinely come across safe houses and vehicles jammed with immigrants across the vast Arizona desert. Last week, 67 illegal immigrants were found crammed inside a U-Haul truck _ a fairly typical scenario in the state.

“We’re on a hamster wheel here. We’re chasing our tail until that border is secured,” said Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, whose territory includes busy smuggling corridors.

The volume of drugs coming through the Arizona border is also eye-popping. Federal agents seized 1.2 million pounds of marijuana last year in Arizona. That amounts to an average of 1.5 tons per day.

Pot busts have become so common that until recently federal prosecutors in Arizona generally declined to press charges against marijuana smugglers caught with less than 500 pounds.

Phoenix has also been dubbed the kidnapping capital of the U.S. amid a surge of extortion-related abductions tied to drugs and human smuggling. The city has averaged about a kidnapping a day in recent years _ some resulting in torture and death. Victims’ legs have been burned with irons, their arms have been tied to the ceiling, their fingers broken with bricks.

The anger over immigration-related violence reached a boiling point in late March when a popular cattle rancher named Rob Krentz was gunned down along with his dog on his property near the border. With authorities suspecting an illegal immigrant, politicians seized on the killing to argue that border security is dangerously weak.

“It’s something that should have been taken care of for years. It’s not something we can keep slacking on,” said Thomas Fitch, whose neighborhood near the Arizona Cardinals stadium was the site of a raid last month that netted 11 illegal immigrants in a safe house. “At the rate we’re going now, it’s going to get a lot worse.”

There has long been strong public support in Arizona for a crackdown.

In 2004, Arizona voters easily approved a law that denies some welfare benefits to illegal immigrants. It passed with 55 percent of the vote. In 2006, lawmakers put four immigration measures on the ballot, including ones that would deny other government benefits to illegal immigrants and make English the official language. Each measure passed with at least 70 percent.

At the same time, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio carved out a reputation as a national leader on illegal immigration, routinely carrying out raids in Hispanic neighborhoods that have prompted a federal investigation. He was elected to a fifth term in 2008.

As the backlash grows over the law, people like Natalia Garcia are closely watching to see how it plays out. She and her husband are illegal immigrants and are afraid that they will get swept up.

“It’s taking away our human rights because we have brown skin,” she said in Spanish while shopping at a Phoenix grocery store, adding that they will move their family back to Mexico if arrested. “Although we’ll live poor, it’s better to be together.”

“My suspicion is that you’re lying,” Judge Robert Lemkau told Katie Tagle, 23.

Ten days later, her 25-year-old ex-boyfriend Stephen Garcia shot and killed their baby son and himself and the case was routine no more. A public frenzy ensued.

The community’s anger with the judge was vocal and passionate. But it probably would have faded away as just another tragic story in a tough-luck town along the freeway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

But this is California _ one of 33 states that elects judges in some form _ and it’s Lemkau’s misfortune that his seat is before voters June 8. The judge takes little solace that a growing number of legal scholars are arguing that electing judges rather than appointing them is unseemly and corrupting.

That’s because a challenger for his job has emerged amid the controversy and the clamor lives on in the local newspapers, talk radio and the blogosphere. Academic white papers discussing the evils of judicial elections are of no help to Lemkau, who continues to weather intense criticism. About 100 demonstrators picketed his court Monday with signs calling the former prosecutor of crimes against children a “baby killer.”

“It occurred at the worst possible time for my candidacy,” said Lemkau, who had expected to run unopposed like the 29 other uncontested judicial seats on the June 8 ballot in San Bernardino County.

Lemkau’s election opponent jumped into the race after the Jan. 31 murder-suicide and is making it the focal point of his campaign, arguing that the judge’s ruling against Tagle was legally wrong and his demeanor ethically questionable.

“His treatment of Katie was horrific,” said James Hosking, a local prosecutor challenging the judge. “Judge Lemkau’s ruling in the Tagle case was indefensible.”

In particular, Hosking said Lemkau may have violated judicial ethics requiring judges to treat litigants with respect when he said he suspected Tagle was lying.

Hosking said he would have ruled in favor of Tagle until it could be determined which parent was telling the truth.

Lemkau, in his first interview since the controversy erupted, told The Associated Press he regretted calling Tagle a liar and was “crushed” as a father and grandfather by the murder-suicide. He said he couldn’t sleep for a week after hearing the news.

“The worst nightmare of a judge,” he said, “is to deny a restraining order and there are catastrophic results.”

Nonetheless, he stands by his decision “based on the evidence before me” and argues further that a contrary ruling that day wouldn’t have stopped Garcia.

“If you are a homicidal, suicidal psychopath, you are not going to be persuaded by a restraining order,” the judge said. “It’s not like I released a psychopath onto the street _ he was already on the street.”

It’s said that criminal court is full of the worst people on their best behavior while family court attracts good people at their worst. Family law court is among the most contentious branches of the judicial system and Lemkau routinely upsets dozens of litigants weekly with his rulings.

“Everyone lies in family law court,” said divorce lawyer Guy Herreman, who has appeared before Lemkau and respects the jurist as fair. “That’s just the facts of life.”

At the heart of Lemkau’s ruling are two e-mails sent by “John Hancock” and labeled “Necessary Evil” that told a long, rambling story of a father who killed himself and his 9-month-old son after his ex-girlfriend failed to reconcile with him. Tagle told the judge Garcia sent the e-mails and meant to carry out the plan. Garcia denied it.

Amid the he-said, she-said argument before him, Lemkau decided Garcia could retain partial custody of his son _ especially since another judge on Jan. 12 found that Garcia wasn’t a threat.

“All I had were the e-mails,” Lemkau said. “The source of the e-mails was indeterminate.”

Tagle last saw her baby on Jan. 28 when she handed him over to Garcia in a Victorville parking lot.

In the days before his death, Garcia posted a flurry of desperate messages on the Web to Tagle, along with pictures of him and Wyatt and video clips of the baby at a younger age.

“Are we really going to do this? I want my (expletive) family back, come back before it’s too late. Please? Anything?” Garcia wrote before posting a photo gallery of himself with his son.

In the wee hours of Jan. 31, Garcia and the baby were found dead on an isolated mountain trail about 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

In a prepared statement the judge read March 3 in a courtroom beefed up with extra security, he apologized for calling Tagle a liar. The apology backfired when the grieving mother rejected it as insincere.

“He didn’t even look me in the eye,” said Tagle, who wore the same blue dress to court March 3 that she wore to her baby’s funeral. The baby’s ashes are now a centerpiece in the Yucca Valley family home Tagle shares with her parents and 4-year-old son, who was told his brother is now “living with the angels.”

Emotions are so raw and Tagle so angry that she rejected a request from Garcia’s parents to share some of the baby’s ashes. Garcia’s parents wanted to mix them in with their son’s remains.

“It’s the only way I can keep my baby safe now,” she said.

Tagle is also backing the judge’s opponent in the election.

“I don’t want to be pitied. I don’t want money. I just want to be heard,” she said. “I don’t want this to happen again. I don’t want him to make a wrong decision again.”

It’s precisely these public uproars over unpopular decisions that opponents of electing judges in contested races argue are unfair.

Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and others are campaigning to change the selection-process in the states that elect judges, arguing that campaign donors are often lawyers who appear routinely before the candidate-judges. They also say judges should be free to make unpopular decisions without having to worry about ballot box repercussions.

“If the judge followed the law, it is simply wrong to punish him for that,” said Northwestern University law professor Stephen Presser, a leading scholar on electing judges. “When you start electing judges, they start playing to public sympathies.”