Lujan Grisham vows to 'resist' Trump's mass deportation plans in New Mexico

Nov. 16—As he drove back home to Artesia from a homeland security briefing Tuesday in Las Cruces, state Rep. Jim Townsend noticed a marked difference among the agents who work at a Border Patrol checkpoint along U.S. 70 in Alamogordo.

"We don't know each other, but we recognize each other," said Townsend, who served as minority leader of the state House of Representatives from late 2018 through 2022.

Although they were always "very nice" in the past, the agents looked disgruntled and were browbeaten, he said.

But Tuesday — a week after former-and-future President Donald Trump won another term in the White House — the looks on their faces told a different story.

"I said, 'You guys look like a couple of Cheshire Cats. You're smiling from ear to ear,' " Townsend recalled. "They said, 'Representative, better days are ahead of us.' "

While border agents Townsend encountered in Alamogordo may be enthusiastic about a president-elect who promised to crack down on border security and illegal immigration, not everyone in New Mexico shares in the excitement, particularly when an unprecedented mass deportation of undocumented immigrants is part of his plan.

"People are scared," said Allen Sánchez, executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops, which plans to be a "voice for those who are here now."

"There's people scared that they or a loved one or their family member, that someone is going to be yanked out of their family and torn apart because they saw that happen" during Trump's first presidency, he said.

"How can you not be afraid if the same people that put children in cages are going to be in charge of this process again?" he asked, referring to the detention of unaccompanied child immigrants and those who had been separated from their families at the border.

Amid the fear is also uncertainty over what it will look like in a blue border state like New Mexico if Trump carries out his promises to secure the southern border and deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

'We're going to resist'

In an interview Friday with The New Mexican, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said her administration will not stand idly by if Trump makes good on his promise of mass deportations. She said such an action is contrary to the values of "most Americans and certainly to those in New Mexico" and would cause significant economic and family disruptions.

"A little bit like the border wall, I'm skeptical that they can actually execute that, but I take this administration at its word that their intentions are to create these sort of harsh, divisive efforts, that they will try," she said.

"We're going to resist like all of the Democratic states, and I think some Republican states might," Lujan Grisham said. "Their [National] Guards will not be deployed to do that. Police cannot be deployed to do that ... because this is a federal issue, requires federal resources, so we're not allowed to do that, and we're not going to start now."

Lujan Grisham said New Mexico is already cooperating with efforts to hold people accountable if they are here illegally and committing crimes.

"I'm going to continue to do that," she said. "If they want the Guard to plus up and to continue doing drug interdiction, I'm working on that. I would share that work with Texas or Oklahoma or Arizona or Colorado. I think that's really important work."

If Trump wants to address the border, the governor advised passing the bipartisan border security bill Trump pressured Republican lawmakers to kill earlier this year.

"Frankly, they could manage the border," she said.

After a number of Democratic governors voiced resistance to Trump's mass deportation plans, Tom Homan, his new "border czar," indicated the new administration would beef up efforts in those states.

"If you don't want to work with us, then get the hell out all the way, we're going to do it," he said in an interview with Fox News Digital before Trump tapped him as border czar.

"What it means is, rather than send 100 people to Boston, we're going to send 200 agents to Boston. We're going to get the job done," he said.

Homan also said the administration would focus first on undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes.

"It's not going to be a massive sweep of neighborhoods. It's not going to be massive raids. It's going to be a targeted enforcement operation," he said.

'We have to be prepared'

State Sen. Joe Cervantes, a Las Cruces Democrat whose district borders Mexico, called Trump's proposal to deport millions of undocumented immigrants in the country "fanciful," citing the impracticality of such a rigorous task.

"I think everyone recognizes it would be an impossibility, and there are far more sensible and effective proposals across the aisle to address our immigration problem," he said, adding it's important to recognize New Mexico and the U.S. have "significant border issues."

"But the idea of exporting 12 million people, I don't know a sensible person who believes that's going to occur," he said.

U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, who represents New Mexico's 1st Congressional District in the central part of the state, said "we are all bracing ourselves for the reality" Trump will make good on the promises he made on the campaign trail.

The announcement that Stephen Miller, the architect of the child separation policy during the last Trump administration, will act as his deputy chief of staff "should tell you everything you need to know about his plans to attack immigrants," she said during a virtual news conference Friday in which she raised alarms about other Trump nominees.

Stansbury noted stock in companies used in the past for immigrant detention went up "exponentially high" a day after Trump won the presidential election.

"It's very clear that there is an expectation that he plans to deliver on his promise," she said. "Now, what will that look like? What will be legally achievable? I personally would predict that it will be as chaotic as what happened in 2017. ... I think there will be a rush to the courts to try to stop illegal activity, but I think they will absolutely try to do mass detention and family separation, and I think we have to be prepared for that."

'Take away their labor?'

New Mexico House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, called mass deportation a "complete fallacy" that would not only create a humanitarian crisis but cripple the economy.

"Are you telling me that Donald Trump is going to go to big corporate agro businesses and take away their labor? Is he going to go to the oil and gas companies and take away their labor?" he asked. "It would completely upend the economy of the United States if he did any semblance of mass deportation."

Like the governor, Martínez advocated for comprehensive immigration reform.

"I'm not going to predict what Trump's going to do or not do — he's an unpredictable person, obviously — but I can tell you from a practical reality, unless Americans are prepared to pay $7 for a head of lettuce, which I don't think they are because we all heard about the price of milk and eggs over and over again," he said. "Well, eggs are about to get more expensive if Trump deports 11 million people."

The Migration Policy Institute, in a 2019 report, estimated 63,000 undocumented immigrants lived in New Mexico at the time, the vast majority from Mexico.That number is likely higher today given a surge in border crossings under the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden.

The report also found that more than 70% of undocumented immigrants in the state at that time had been here at least 10 years.

In a report earlier this year, the Pew Research Center estimated the unauthorized immigrant population across the entire United States had grown to 11 million in 2022, up from 10.5 million in 2021.

"This is the first sustained increase in the unauthorized immigrant population since the period from 2005 to 2007," the center reported. "However, the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2022 was still below the peak of 12.2 million in 2007."

Most demographers rely primarily on the Pew Research Center for data on the number undocumented immigrants, Robert Rhatigan, director of Geospatial and Population Studies at the University of New Mexico, wrote in an email.

"Estimating undocumented residents is very difficult even at the national level, and any data is highly uncertain," he wrote.

'Committed to bridging divides'

U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, who represents 180 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border in New Mexico, was unavailable for an interview, and his office didn't respond to specific questions, including his opinion on Trump's mass deportation plans.

"At present this is no plan," his spokesperson, Valeria Ojeda-Avitia, said in a statement. "There is simply rhetoric."

Ojeda-Avitia said Vasquez would continue to fight for the best interests of the state's 2nd Congressional District, "which includes a secure border and ensuring a legal pathway to citizenship to those who've earned it." She didn't elaborate when asked who has earned a legal pathway to citizenship.

Vasquez, who was in a tough reelection fight against former U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell, the Republican he narrowly defeated two years ago, was constantly hammered over the border and illegal immigration during the campaign.

In July, Vasquez and another Democrat and Republican in tight races introduced a bill to try to stem the flow of fentanyl at the southern border.

"Congressman Vasquez is committed to bridging divides in Congress, regardless of who is in the White House, to find real solutions and advance policies that reflect the unique needs and values of New Mexico's border communities," Ojeda-Avitia said.

While New Mexico's entire congressional delegation is Democratic, they will be in the minority in Congress after Republicans won both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House, giving Trump's party control.

In response to a question, Lujan Grisham said she didn't think it was "outside the realm of possibilities" that Trump would make New Mexico an example after the state voted for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris — and she had stumped for Harris across the country.

"People, I think, know me as kind of a fighter for the things that are right," she said. "But they should also expect me, that if there are things this administration proposes that are good for New Mexico, I'm not going to fight that for the sake of a difference in a political agenda. We do the things that make a difference for New Mexicans."

When Trump held a rally in Albuquerque just five days before the general election, he harped on border security and illegal immigration — a central theme of his campaign and one that was greeted with enthusiastic support from rallygoers who cheered and applauded every time he brought up the subject.

"They all said, 'Don't come [to New Mexico],' " Trump said in his opening remarks.

"I said, 'Why? They don't want to stop the people pouring across the border that are murderers; they're killers; they're drug addicts; they're drug dealers; they're gang members? Why? New Mexico wants to keep it going like it is?' " he said, prompting a large segment of the crowd to respond "No!" in unison.

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