VENEZUELA’S foreign minister has said he was illegally detained for 90 minutes by officials at a New York airport and accused them of treating him abusively by trying to frisk and handcuff him.

The US' Homeland Security Department has made the nation only marginally safer than before the 2001 terror attacks that created it, the agency’s former internal watchdog claims in a new book.

A new terror threat against the New York subway raised the spectre of an attack with explosives concealed in a baby stroller and prompted a show of force by the largest police department in the US.

Fights and rubbish fires broke out, rescue helicopters were shot at and anger mounted across New Orleans today, as National Guardsmen in armoured vehicles poured in to help restore order across this increasingly desperate and lawless city.

Some immigrants used false documents to enter the United States, others let their legal visas expire once in the country. And at least 21 foreign nationals became naturalised US citizens before being charged or convicted as terrorists.