“With 2024 being an election year, we know that the stakes are high and there is pressure to propose bills that would provide wins for both political parties, however, compromising on the lives of people and our borderlands, which we call home — is not a win. 

On Sunday, a small group of Senators released a supplemental spending bill that contains some harmful immigration, asylum, and border-related provisions that could potentially give dangerous powers to current and future administrations to close our border to those seeking safety, and continue the deadly legacy of deterrence and border militarization.

While there are certain contents of the bill that would have beneficial measures for some, it does not address DACA or Dreamers, and others who are forced to live in the shadows and be in consistent limbo with their legal status. The bill is far from balanced, but it is not an enforcement-only plan. The potential beneficial measures include concessions that have been blocked in Congress for years, such as: additional green cards and legal representation. 

However, additional money towards border security further militarizes and surveils communities and people that live on the border. We advise our elected officials to look into and explore more humane solutions and proposals to persistent problems. By proposing more funding towards more technology and surveillance year after year, that has clearly not yielded any improved results. Hardline policies will not deter them either. While we cannot ignore or pretend that the supply and demand of drugs isn’t present within our boundaries, wrapping this framing in the mix of other measures and doing so in future bills, continues the harmful narrative that this is all the Southern border is about. 

In 2023, there were at least 109 migrant deaths in the desert, most of them around Sunland Park, New Mexico – a town of 16,000 people. What message does that send to our community about how we view, acknowledge, and welcome people and those that are in search of a new and better life? Nobody should die or be criminalized for crossing or seeking asylum at our ports of entry.

NM CAFe understands that our New Mexico elected officials, such as Senator Martin Heinrich, Senator Ben Ray Luján, and Congressman Gabe Vasquez want to maintain and protect Southern New Mexico in all of its rich and cultural heritage, and for the people that live, work and thrive here. We advise that continuing to trade off and bargain with our border communities and people every year, is not a solution. 

We know that our New Mexico delegation can be true champions for immigrant and border communities, and all three of our representatives know the on the ground realities we truly face, and in addition to that, we have seen you be those champions before. Furthermore, not including on the ground organizations from New Mexico or Southern New Mexico to be included in these conversations over the negotiations of this bill, leaves out the voices of those that are marginalized and directly impacted. 

Our New Mexico delegation must acknowledge that the bill imposes severe hardships and punitive measures on asylum seekers, and that the United States ultimately and unfairly will be turning away more people who qualify for asylum. The Southern border can be managed humanely and effectively with emergency funding and solutions that do not compromise fairness or the humanitarian principles of U.S. immigration law.

Rather than continue to fund over-policing tactics of the border and it’s communities, and supplementing DHS with additional funding to hire more border patrol agents, a more humanitarian approach and efficient way to reform the immigration system would be to look into other avenues such as: the divestment from private detention centers to deter politicians from benefiting from the influxes of immigration.

All eyes are on the Southern Border from California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas right now and also every year during an election cycle. For a few of us at NM CAFe, as leaders and organizers alike, we are products of migration and we know the lived realities of those that crossed that border in times of hardship and desperation. Proposing this $118 billion bipartisan bill should go toward funding measures that benefit our communities as a whole during a time when so many across the country are struggling to put food on the table, take care of their families, maintain their physical and mental health, housing, and infrastructural needs in our rural communities. If we want safer communities, we need investments in their individual needs, which can create and cultivate safer and beneficial environments.”

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*NM Comunidades en Acción y de Fe (CAFe) is a community broad-based organization in Southern New Mexico committed to building  power with and for New Mexicans who have been directly impacted by systems of injustice. The non-partisan 501c3 organization is a part of Faith in Action, the largest faith-based community organization in the country.*