City councilors seek to reverse immigrant friendly policy

Councilors Brook Bassan and Renée Grout are co-sponsoring a bill that would reverse the city’s Immigrant Friendly Policy to allow police to contact federal authorities if an undocumented immigrant is charged with certain violent crimes or drug offenses.

The bill to amend the current policy, introduced at the Albuquerque City Council meeting Monday night, was the subject of a robust public comment period. The current policy states, among other things, that police can’t ask for proof of someone’s immigration status unless it is important to their investigation.  

One speaker said the amendment isn’t fair to families because when they need to call the police or fire department to ask for help, they don’t feel safe. 

“We want to live in a state where there’s security and families feel safe and families will not be separated,” she said. “We don’t feel safe in situations where they become victims. This amendment will enable police to abuse power and turn people over to ICE regardless if charges against them have been substantiated.”

The amendment, she said, is based on racial profiling, and the presumption of innocence is not granted to all New Mexicans equally. 

“It creates a two-tier criminal justice system,” she said. “It’s not guilt or innocence or whether or not we have an accent. We have a right to live with the presumption of innocence granted for New Mexicans and not only for some New Mexicans.” 

City Desk ABQ asked the Albuquerque Police Department how it would enforce the legislation if it passes.

APD spokesperson Gilbert Gallegos said the department doesn’t typically respond to hypothetical situations. 

“If the city’s ordinance changes, we will evaluate how it will be enforced,” he said.

Mayor Tim Keller responded in an emailed statement that the city wants criminals behind bars, and not set free from the criminal justice system.

“Deportation actually eliminates the possibility of victims and their families getting justice,” he said. “We need victims and their families to be able to trust our officers and feel safe engaging law enforcement to protect them without fear of deportation.” 

The bill was referred to the Finance and Government Operations Committee and will be heard at the next regular city council meeting.

The current policy has gone to the opposite extreme 

The current immigrant friendly ordinance was amended in 2017 by councilors Klarissa Peña, Isaac Benton, Pat Davis, and Diane Gibson. It states that no city resources will be used to identify someone’s immigration status and that a person won’t be questioned or detained because they’re suspected of being undocumented. 

Bassan told City Desk ABQ the current policy has gone to the opposite extreme of what it was originally intended to do. 

“That extreme is causing people to come here illegally from other countries and committing crime and that’s where I think we should draw the line,” she said. “If somebody is charged with committing a violent felony, human trafficking, or trafficking of controlled substances, we should work with federal immigration authorities to find out if somebody is here legally or illegally.” 

Bassan said if the person charged is found to be here illegally, federal authorities should be able to take over the case and it should go through the judicial process. 

But not everyone believes this is sound policy. Andres Esquivel, campaign manager for the immigration reform advocacy organization New Mexico Dream Team, said they don’t feel good about this legislation. 

“I feel like it’s definitely backtracking on a lot of the progress that we’ve made as a city to ensure that this is a safe city for all,” they said.

Esquivel said this policy lines up with an incorrect narrative that immigrants commit crimes. 

“Usually when we look at statistics and things like that, immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes. As we move in from another country, we don’t want to get in trouble,” they said. 

According to a study by Northwestern University that analyzed 150 years of U.S. Census data, immigrants were consistently less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the United States. 

If passed, Esquivel said this amendment would bring fear to Albuquerque’s undocumented immigrant communities. 

“They’re going to be taking people’s information and sending it over to ICE. Regardless of what it’s about,” they said. “It’s still a risk, especially since this amendment only talks about charges and not convictions.” 

Bassan: Amendment targets the ‘worst of the worst’ 

Bassan said she’s been working behind the scenes with different organizations to craft the legislation so that it’s not an extreme change to the current policy. 

The amendment, she said, is not trying to cause bigger problems for people who are truly coming here to get away from a dangerous or unsafe environment. 

“This is supposed to be targeting the bad of the bad and the worst of the worst who are coming here and victimizing — whether they’re immigrants who are here illegally or are citizens in the community,” she said.

The amendment, Bassan said, makes a statement that the city isn’t going to allow violent criminals, people who are victimizing and selling human beings or trying to deal 100,000 fentanyl tablets on the street, into our community. 

She said only a sergeant or above would be able to contact federal authorities and there’d be data collection to make sure a certain part of Albuquerque or a certain officer isn’t making all of the reports. 

“We can make sure to have some guardrails to minimize and ideally eliminate the potential for abuse from the system,” she said.

However, Esquivel said the immigrant community doesn’t want to be pawns in a political game during an election year. 

“There’s a lot of rampant xenophobia towards immigrants,” they said. “Just genuinely do not pass this amendment. Keep our sanctuary city status as is.”