At the port of entry in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, Representative Gabe Vasquez was joined by law enforcement and other local leaders to announce plans to introduce five pieces of legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“One of the things I’ve found is that it’s going to be incredibly difficult to get comprehensive immigration reform in the current state of politics that we’re seeing in Washington, DC and across our nation. But I wanted to do something meaningful for my community,” he said. “I wanted to advance the conversation on immigration, and I also wanted to have a meaningful impact on creating and building wealth in our border communities like Santa Teresa, and like Sunland Park, and like Anthony, and Vado, and Berino, and Las Cruces, and our neighbours in El Paso as well.”
The package of bills Vasquez plans to introduce will focus on migrant workers, border agents, immigrant detention centres and human smuggling. One of the bills would impose harsher penalties on those convicted of human trafficking crimes involving minors, which Sunland Park Police Chief Eric Lopez says is a growing problem. Chief Lopez said that partnerships with other law enforcement agencies are crucial in dealing with the issue.
“Collaboration is obviously [important] with the feds and state and local agencies that are out there, and also technology. I think that would help,” he said. “So that we can hopefully identify some of these migrants that are coming across in these desolate areas that you see out here, especially in the summer months when that seems to be the highest spike in deaths and injuries along the border wall as well.”
Vasquez said he hopes to find bipartisan support for the legislation.
“We should have people at the table and we should have productive discussions about what it means to bring people into this country in a legal and humanitarian way.”
Vazquez said he plans to introduce the bills in Congress by the end of this week.
