Last year, a twenty-year-old Mexican crimonology college student made international headlines when she took over as police chief for a township in the border state of Chihuahua — one of Mexico’s most dangerous regions. Marisol Valles Garcia was the only person willing to accept the position after the town’s former police chief was gunned down and beheaded. “We’re all afraid in Mexico now. We can’t let fear beat us,” she said after being sworn in last October.

Yet, after just a few months on the job, newspapers are reporting that Valles Garcia was fired yesterday for “abandoning her post.” The young police chief was reportedly on leave to be with her child until Monday. However, she never returned. Although town officials are denying reports that Valles Garcia actually fled her post, her relatives have provided a different story. According to loved ones, Valles Garcia is in the U.S. seeking asylum after receiving multiple death threats from drug cartels. The AFP reports:

A college student and mother who was a Mexican bordertown police chief has fled to the United States seeking asylum, one of her relatives told AFP on Thursday. Marisol Valles, 20, “received death threats from a criminal group that wanted to force her to work for them,” the relative told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Valles, who has a baby son, took over the job as police chief in the town of Praxedis G. Guerrero in October after two other job candidates dropped out following the assassination of the mayor and his son.
Valles “went to the United States along with two relatives and will seek asylum,” the source told AFP.

Today, an official with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) told AFP that Valles Garcia is in fact in the United States.

The former police chief joins a growing group of Mexican and Central American nationals who have fled rampant drug violence in search of political asylum. The number of people asking for asylum at ports of entry just along the U.S. – Mexico border has nearly doubled over the past couple of years. Yet, obtaining asylum remains difficult. In order to qualify, asylum applicants must prove “credible fear” based on their membership in a social, political, religious, or ethnic group that has been targeted for persecution. Asylum applicants who are fleeing Latin America’s drug violence usually have no problem demonstrating that they have a reason to fear for their lives, however, persecution based on their membership in a group is much more difficult to prove. Less than two percent of the 3,800 Mexican asylum petitions were approved last year.

At least one Latin American asylum seeker who fled drug violence has been successful as the courts start to grapple with the modern day threats that many of our southern neighbors are facing. Last year, a journalist who received death threats after covering the drug war in Mexico was granted asylum in the U.S. It was deemed one of the first cases of its kind. Yet, a Texas court recently denied the asylum petition from a police officer from Juarez, Mexico on the basis that he simply faced “the risks police officers have to take.” (The asylum seeker in question, José Alarcón, claims he was being set up by his own bosses to be killed — which doesn’t seem like a risk any law enforcement officer should have to take in my opinion).

Based on precedent, Valles Garcia will likely face an uphill legal battle to stay in the U.S. At the very least though, the attention she has already attracted will most likely shed more light on a set of asylum standards that one Judge has referred to as “illogical” and “perverse.”

A new study (pdf) by The Muslim American Public Opinion Survey (MAPOS), the largest study of Muslim Americans ever done, “finds that involvement with the mosque, and increased religiosity increases civic engagement and support for American democratic values”:

Despite the popularized idea that Muslims are radicalized around the country in mosques, we find that mosques help Muslims integrate into US society, and in fact have a very productive role in bridging the differences between Muslims and non-Muslims in the United States. This is a finding in social science that is consistent with decades of research on other religious groups such as Jews, Protestants and Catholics where church attendance and religiosity has been proven to result in higher civic engagement and support for core values of the American political system. Likewise, mosques are institutions that should be encouraged to function as centers of social and political integration in America.

One of the most significant findings was that American Muslims “with high levels of religiosity are overwhelmingly likely to believe that Islam is compatible with political participation in the United States”:

While 77% of those with the lowest levels of religiosity feel Islam is compatible with political involvement in America, 95% of those who are most religious feel Islam is compatible with American politics.

This data deals a significant blow to the arguments of people like Osama bin Laden and Frank Gaffney, who argue that “authentic” Islam is inherently anti-American and incompatible with democracy. It also suggests that Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has it wrong, and that what we really need are more mosques in this country.

Like clockwork, conservatives have been attacking President Obama for not intervening fast enough in the crisis unfolding in Libya. Hearkening back to language Dick Cheney directed at Obama during his deliberations about how to move forward in Afghanistan, many on the right have accused the President of “dithering.” Others want unilateral U.S. military action, and they want it now. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said recently that the U.S. should establish a no-fly zone in Libya without UN or NATO support, a move tantamount to war according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Last night on Fox News, Newt Gingrich went a bit further, saying he wants the U.S. to go into Libya with guns blazing “this evening” and that the U.S. should go it alone because NATO “won’t bring much to the fight,” and apparently, the UN is useless:

VAN SUSTEREN: What would you do about Libya?

GINGRICH: Exercise a no-fly zone this evening. … It’s also an ideological problem. The United States doesn’t need anybody’s permission. We don’t need to have NATO, who frankly, won’t bring much to the fight. We don’t need to have the United Nations. All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening. And we don’t have to send troops. All we have to do is suppress his air force, which we could do in minutes.

Watch it:

While Gingrich thinks the U.S. military could clean up the situation in Libya in “minutes,” the reality is that it’s a bit more complicated than that. CentCom commander Gen. James Mattis recently said that implementing a no-fly zone would be “challenging” because it would involve “military operations” other than just telling the Libyans not to fly. And as CAP’s John Norris noted, “We shouldn’t kid ourselves. Blowing up a runway or imposing a no-fly zone are not silver bullets.” Norris urges “thoughtful action designed with an endgame firmly in mind,” such as leaving all options on the table — including military action, building an legitimate international coalition, and explaining the best course of action to the American people.

And this is exactly what President Obama is doing. Allied AWACS planes are currently flying intelligence missions over Libya and the U.S. has been providing humanitarian assistance in Libya for weeks. As the President said yesterday, “We’ve got NATO, as we speak, consulting in Brussels around a wide range of potential options — including potential military options.” Meanwhile, France and Britain are currently working in the UN to get a resolution authorizing a no-fly zone in Libya. “I think at this point there is a sense that any action should be the result of international sanction,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday.

But, if President Gingrich had his chance, American bombers, without any allied assistance, would be on their way to bomb Libya — tonight. Given recent U.S. history in the region, following Gingrich’s advice is a fool’s errand.