IN ALBUQUERQUE Turn on the television in any state near the border with Mexico, and before long you\'ll see a Republican campaign ad that looks something like this one, which ran here earlier this year: \"I\'m standing in New Mexico,\" the candidate says, \"and on the other side of that fence is the murder capital of the world.\" A picture of armed police flashes across the screen. \"When crime spills over, I prosecute.\"

Deficient recordkeeping -- but not any actual instances of hiring illegal workers -- resulted in a seven-figure fine levied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Using technology for I-9s offers some benefits, but HR leaders can\'t ignore their organizations\' responsibility for making sure such systems are in compliance with the law.

The seven Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday called for an investigation into the dismissal of hundreds of immigration cases in Houston, accusing Homeland Security officials of selectively enforcing the law. Texas Sen. John Cornyn and six GOP colleagues on the powerful panel wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano demanding a full report on the dismissals by Nov. 15.

Exhausted from the journey, Arteaga, at 43, was hardly the spry twentysomething he\'d been the last time he\'d illegally crossed into the United States. Crouching out of sight in the bushes near the Texas-Mexico border, he prayed he wouldn\'t be caught. In his pocket, Arteaga carried a Delta Dental insurance card—a remnant of the life from which he\'d been swept away several weeks earlier. He\'d been stopped for a traffic violation and then deported from his home in Boston to a country he hadn\'t seen since he was a young man.

Latinos who are frustrated with Congress\' failure to adopt comprehensive immigration reform are being targeted with a lie: that the best strategy to achieve their goal is to stop participating in the democratic process. Don\'t vote. Be silent. Go uncounted to teach the politicians a lesson. But that approach cannot and will not work. No group in the United States has ever forwarded its political agenda by auto-disenfranchisement.

The Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada claims to be the state\'s first Asian American legislator. Wait, what? This election year, we\'ve witnessed some of the oddest political pronouncements on the nature of identity in recent memory. There was Delaware Senate candidate Christine O\'Donnell\'s refudiation of her youthful flirtation with Wiccanism. (\"I\'m not a witch, I\'m you.\" Unless you\'re a witch.)

Control of Congress will be decided by dozens of House and Senate races CBS News has identified as critical contests. In the House, Republicans need to pick up 39 seats now held by Democrats to reach the 218 it takes to become the majority. They have a good shot at that. They\'re favored or have an even shot at winning at least that many Democratic seats

State Sen. Russell Pearce wants to be Arizona\'s King of Immigration Laws. Bad idea. The author of SB 1070 now plans to go after birthright citizenship. He either does not understand or does not care about the negative consequences of once again turning Arizona into a guinea pig for extreme ideas. He does not understand or does not care about the price of once again making Arizona the target of international ridicule and wrath.

Illegal immigration has popped up as an issue in campaign ads, with Republicans and even the occasional Democrat using it to charge their rivals with being sympathetic to law breakers. But the issue, which can work to energize voters, especially conservatives in jurisdictions with relatively few immigrants, appears to be boomeranging in at least one place with many immigrants - Nevada.

Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman have both struggled to define their position on immigration during an election year in which the Latino vote is critical and tough laws in a neighboring state have made headlines. Whitman arguably has had a more difficult road, trying to find a middle ground between conservatives who favor stricter regulations and Latinos whom she needs to win.

The message behind a short-lived, but highly publicized ad was clear: Latinos, stay home. Voter suppression isn’t usually marketed as voter empowerment. But in the ad by Latinos for Reform, an independent campaigning group led by career conservative Robert de Posada, the paradox was presented as plain sense — because the Democrats haven’t delivered on immigration, exercise your right to vote by not doing so.

A Russell Pearce by any other name smells just as . . . you tell me. There are political clones of Arizona\'s state Sen. Pearce, sponsor of SB 1070, popping up all over America. In Pennsylvania, for example, he goes by the name of state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe.

A Mexican migrant worker says he was one of two who did work earlier this year on Gov. Gary Herbert’s Orem home and now is battling his employer over money he says was illegally withheld from him and his co-workers. The worker, Alfredo Ortega,who was working legally in the country, isn’t accusing Herbert of doing anything wrong or having any knowledge of the wage dispute with the landscaping firm which employed him.

Rep. Paul Ray joined at least 13 other state lawmakers nationwide Tuesday in forming a working group seeking to eliminate the birthright clause in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The group, 14th Amendment Citizens Model Committee, is billed as a nationwide task force created by Pennsylvania Rep. Daryl Metcalfe to “eliminate the misapplication of the 14th Amendment.”

SALT LAKE CITY -- A head-to-head debate pitted Republican Gov. Gary Herbert against Democratic Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon at the University of Utah Tuesday night. The gubernatorial candidates met at a Town Hall debate in their final appearance together before the election. The debate focused on the economy, education, ethics and immigration. Both candidates relied heavily on talking points honed from weeks of previous debates.

record the 2010 Nevada U.S. Senate campaign for posterity, they may find themselves writing about, of all places, Rancho High School in North Las Vegas as the turning point in the race. It was there on Friday Republican challenger Sharron Angle might have finally spoken the words even she can\'t walk away from.