Jose Luis Gongora-Interian wept as he described to a federal judge his wife’s struggles to support their family on a part-time salary and to care for their 12-year-old son, who was born with spina bifida.

For 14 years, the 35-year-old native of the Yucatan region of Mexico stayed out of trouble in the United States, where he had been living as an illegal immigrant, his attorney, James Baiamonte told U.S. District Judge Martha Vazquez on Wednesday.

But last spring, Gongora-Interian made a mistake that in other circumstances wouldn’t have seemed so bad, Baiamonte said. Gongora-Interian returned to Mexico to visit his dying mother.

He headed north toward the U.S.-Mexico border two weeks later after funeral arrangements were made. This time, Gongora-Interian made it only five miles into the United States before being arrested by Border Patrol agents in Columbus.

Vazquez found the story she was told during Gongora-Interian’s sentencing hearing “exceptional and compelling” and went outside the guidelines in sentencing him to time served.

But she warned Gongora-Interian that despite his son’s need for medical attention, he must not re-enter the United States.

“You may get caught,” she said. “And if so, you will be facing four, five or six years in custody. Please understand you are not going to be as lucky as you were today.”

The judge’s concerns that illegal immigrants aren’t aware of the consequences they face when re-entering the United States have prompted her and U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to record public service announcements regarding the penalties.

“We went on Univision radio just to warn people how bad the consequences are,” she said. “The message isn’t getting to Mexico that the consequences are fierce now.”

About half of the cases that go through the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Albuquerque are immigration-related, said Norm Cairns, a spokesman for the office. And the vast majority of those are re-entry cases, he said.

In New Mexico, the number of immigration felony filings grew from 240 cases in 1997 to 1,826 in 2005 – an increase of 661 percent, Vazquez wrote in a letter to Sen. Pete Domenici. The New Mexico Republican is calling for the creation of a new federal judgeship for New Mexico.

Immigrants who have not committed a crime other than re-entering the United States after a deportation order face up to six months in prison.

Cairns said his office typically does not prosecute such cases, though it will when an immigrant repeatedly violates an order not to return.

Gongora-Interian had been deported back to Mexico before after spending eight months in a U.S. prison. He was arrested in Portland, Oregon in 1992 with a small amount of cocaine in his wallet, Baiamonte said. The money, drugs and the scales found on Gongora-Interian and in a vehicle in which he said he had been sleeping was enough to convince a jury to convict Gongora-Interian of drug trafficking.

That didn’t stop Gongora-Interian from seeking a better life in the United States. He and his wife left Mexico for Portland and had four children. His 12-year-old son, Jose, receives medical treatment at a children’s hospital there, he said.

Gongora-Interian, who had been jailed since April on his latest arrest, expressed confusion in the New Mexico court Wednesday for what seemed to him a rehash of his 1992 conviction.

“I don’t understand why I am being sentenced for something when I’ve already served my time in jail,” he told Vazquez.

U.S. Sentencing Commission guidelines for illegal re-entry are some of the harshest in the federal system, with penalty enhancements for a defendant’s prior criminal history that can add years to the recommended sentence,” Vazquez said outside the courtroom.

Many immigrant defendants charged with illegal re-entry are offered a standard plea agreement in the United States, which reduces their sentence if they accept responsibility for their crime and give up their rights to an appeal, Cairns said.