I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Albuquerque mayor Richard Berry announced today that everyone who is arrested in Albuquerque will have their immigration status checked, regardless of race. Berry announced the plan, which Berry characterized as a “not an immigration issue” but “a public safety issue,” to end what he called Albuquerque’s sanctuary city status.
“This plan ends the sanctuary city policy for criminals while protecting victims and witnesses,” Mayor Berry said. “By making immigration checks mandatory for everyone arrested regardless of their nationality, skin color or language, we are removing racial profiling from the equation.”
In the release mentioning the new policy, Berry made multiple references to saying this would not be racial profiling. After enacting a new, controversial immigration law, Arizona is facing financial consequences because of what critics say is racial profiling.
Alfredo Campos, the acting field office director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention and Removal Operations in El Paso, said in a statement, “This is not a good day for criminal aliens who before today may have not been identified by ICE at the Metropolitan Detention Center.”
“As far as these new procedures are concerned, a person going about their day to day business has no reason to fear that they will be questioned about their legal status,” Berry said. “Further, victims and witnesses will not have their immigration status checked when they call for help or to report a crime.”
Immigration was a part of Berry’s platform as a mayoral candidate last year.
At the time, Reverend Daniel Erdman, outreach coordinator of the New Mexico Conference of Churches, told The Independent that he didn’t think the “sanctuary status” label for Albuquerque was accurate.
“I’m not even sure what that means, but Albuquerque isn’t that. People are deported from here every day,” Erdman told The Independent last September.
