{"id":47606,"date":"2025-08-01T17:41:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T00:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/?p=47606"},"modified":"2025-08-01T17:41:02","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T00:41:02","slug":"immigration-enforcement-in-new-mexico-what-role-if-any-should-state-and-local-governments-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/immigration-enforcement-in-new-mexico-what-role-if-any-should-state-and-local-governments-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration Enforcement in New Mexico: What Role (If Any) Should State and Local Governments Play?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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You\u2019ve likely seen videos from across the country of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, clad in masks, detaining people in public, often forcibly. One such video<\/a> taken at an Albuquerque Walmart a few weeks ago, where officers tased delivery shopper Deivi Jose Molina-Pe\u00f1a, prompted protests<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after, Mayor Tim Keller issued an executive order<\/a> reaffirming and expanding the city\u2019s 2018 Immigrant-Friendly Resolution<\/a>. The order includes new provisions like a requirement that city departments report ICE activity in their facilities and a path for city police to confirm ICE activity when the public inquires.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhether it is ICE agents popping out of vans, wearing masks, rounding up people who are not even immigrants, who are Native Americans, who are legally here in the city…This has nothing to do with immigration policy. This is more like terror,\u201d Keller said at the signing.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the mayor\u2019s side<\/a> that day was State Senator Cindy Nava (D-Bernalillo), one of the first former DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals<\/a>) recipients to hold elected office anywhere in the country. Growing up undocumented means Nava brings a unique perspective to Roundhouse debates over state immigration policy.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs lawmakers, you really have to be knowledgeable about the issues and things that you\u2019re advocating for,\u201d she tells me in an interview on this week\u2019s show. \u201cBut…you can\u2019t pretend that you understand in the same form that someone who has lived those issues has.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She recalls being undocumented and watching politicians debate immigration reform, setting it down because they couldn\u2019t get it just right.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI remember sitting there in agony with my family saying, \u2018Goodness. OK, so they\u2019re not thinking about the people who are actually suffering, who actually need a social security [number] to be able to go and just work decently, to be able to have health care access.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nava walks us through state proposals that failed this year to prohibit state and local agencies from using public resources to enforce federal immigration law and block local governments from contracting with ICE and private prison companies to detain immigrants. She also looks ahead to the next session and explains why she backs Mayor Keller\u2019s approach.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also hear from conservative Albuquerque City Councilor Dan Lewis, who not only opposes Keller\u2019s order, calling it \u201cpolitical theater\u201d and \u201csmoke and mirrors,\u201d but his entire tenure as mayor.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have an extremely weak mayor who has no interest in improving the public safety of this city,\u201d Lewis, who lost to Keller in the 2017 mayoral race<\/a>, tells me on this week\u2019s show.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewis consistently steered the conversation about immigration toward crime, drugs and public safety, despite research<\/a> that shows immigrants without legal status commit violent and drug crimes at less than half the rate of U.S.-born citizens. I pushed him on his reframing of the conversation toward immigrants who are accused of crimes, and criminal activity unrelated to immigrants, asking whether he was insinuating that immigrants create more crime in the city.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. I didn\u2019t say that at all. I mean, you\u2019re making some questions up that I\u2019m not sure what you\u2019re getting at,\u201d he said.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I clarified, he said there’s \u201ccertainly room for reform nationwide in illegal immigrant law and enforcement,\u201d but a solution available at the city level is to \u201cCooperate [with ICE] in some very simple ways that protect the civil rights of everybody who lives in our city and at the same time have a benefit to public safety in our city.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewis says he\u2019d like to see the city allow ICE access to the Prisoner Transport Center<\/a>, which was prohibited under the 2018 Immigrant-Friendly Resolution, to target undocumented people accused of crimes.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also get out of the policy realm and hear from those involved in the personal, day-to-day stories of people impacted by federal changes in immigration enforcement. NMiF Reporter Cailley Chella introduces us to detainees at the immigration prison in Cibola County and the volunteers supporting them. We also speak with community leaders from Somos Un Pueblo Unido to the Catholic Church who are working for and alongside immigrants in New Mexico every day.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We hope you\u2019ll join us for a look at immigration policy and enforcement in New Mexico tonight at 7 p.m. on NMPBS, channel 5.1, or on-demand on the PBS app<\/a> and New Mexico in Focus Youtube channel<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Nash Jones, Host \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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