SUNLAND PARK, N.M. (AP) — Immigration policy looks different from the backyard of Ardovino’s Desert Crossing restaurant.
It’s where Robert Ardovino saw a Border Patrol carriage roll across his land on a sweltering summer morning, where surveillance helicopters painted lines in the sky and nearby Border Patrol agents roamed a desert valley littered with discarded water bottles and clothing.
It’s also where exhausted people, accompanied by smugglers, scale the border wall and the slopes of Cristo Rey mountain, trekking into an uncertain future, in a desert region where reports of people dying of exhaustion and cold are commonplace.
“For me, as someone on the border, it’s clear that this is not an open border. It’s a very, very, very difficult situation,” said Mr. Aldovino, who is paying for his own private fence with accordion wire tops to direct migrants away from his restaurant, as well as a vintage aluminum trailer that he rents out to guests.
“I would love to have this conversation based on facts, but being here I see that that’s not the case.”
As Immigration Policy Moved to The Front Lines of This Year’s Presidential ElectionSo far, they have had the advantage in nationwide elections for seats that could determine which party controls Congress. But the urgency of the situation is higher in some districts than others.
Of the 11 districts along the southern U.S. border, three are hotly contested rematches of districts that flipped in 2022 when Rep. Gabe Vázquez, a Democrat from New Mexico, Rep. Juan Siscomani, a Republican from Arizona, and Rep. Monica de la Cruz of Texas won.
A partner in a decades-old family business, Aldovino lives on the Texas border and works in Vasquez’s New Mexico district. He Bipartisan border bill collapsed in February He’s in Washington, exasperated by politicians who talk about “open borders” from afar.
What he wants above all is a collective solution that doesn’t downplay the work of the Border Patrol or ignore real-world challenges, like migrants fleeing dictators.
“It’s frustrating for people who want any kind of border bill at any time, when you start dealing with the bigger picture,” Ardovino said. “I’d rather run a restaurant than deal with building these fences.”
Democrats advocate solutions to border issues
Early voting begins Oct. 8 in Sunland Park, on the edge of a district that flipped in 2018, 2020 and again in 2022 with Vazquez’s election victory.
Democrats in Congress Promoting border security It includes about a half-dozen bills from Vasquez, rarely seen before, and he boasts of his knowledge of the region as the U.S.-born son of immigrants with relatives on both sides of the border.
“Due to migrant activity along the border, we have had to adjust our approach,” Vázquez said. “For the last 50 years, we have been able to say the sky is blue, but when it turns red, we have to admit it’s red.”
Here, border policy is literally a matter of life and death: Federal and local officials have described a new humanitarian crisis along a roughly 180-mile stretch of the New Mexico border, where a surge in heat-related migrant deaths and ruthless smuggling cartels are wreaking havoc.
Doña Ana County shares a 45-mile stretch of the border with Mexico, and the Sheriff’s Department reported finding 78 migrant bodies there between January and mid-August.
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“In my 21 years with the Doña Ana Sheriff’s Department, I’ve never seen a death toll like this,” Maj. John Day said.
In Texas, Democratic challenger Michelle Vallejo shocked progressive allies in her campaign to oust Mr. de la Cruz with a tough stance on border security. Her latest ads portrayed “chaos at the border” and called for bipartisan cooperation to increase Border Patrol agents and fight human trafficking cartels.
“Responsibility to Enforce the Law”
Ciscomani, the Republican incumbent representing Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, has made border security a top priority. But he has distanced himself from former President Donald Trump’s sometimes-scathing anti-immigrant rhetoric and has avoided campaign events in the battleground state of Arizona. Instead, Ciscomani tells his own immigration story — his own story of coming to the United States from Hermosillo, Mexico, at age 11. He became a citizen in 2006 and says he’s committed to fixing the border.
“We have a responsibility to enforce the law at the border, but we are also a community of immigrants who have come to this country, and I am one of them, and we are looking for opportunity.”
Experts say border voters have specific concerns about smugglers and contraband, but they also see the benefits of allowing cross-border commerce and commuter traffic.
“I think there’s a more nuanced view,” said Samara Klahr, a polling expert and professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Government and Public Policy.
Border Patrol Southwest border arrests plummet Migrant deaths fell to a 46-month low in July after Mexican authorities cracked down and President Joe Biden temporarily halted the processing of asylum applications. But in New Mexico, where the decline was less pronounced, a spike in migrant deaths prompted coordinated raids by U.S. law enforcement agencies in August on safe houses where smugglers were harboring migrants.
Vázquez, seeking to become the first Democrat to seek reelection in New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District since 1978, has introduced bills to better detect fentanyl coming across the border and to stop drug cartels from recruiting young Americans (for a short time, they offer $1,100) to ferry migrants to safe houses, as addiction epidemics and homeless encampments proliferate in cities along the upper Rio Grande.
But he also plans to improve conditions in immigrant detention centers and offer permanent residency to immigrants who hold essential jobs in the United States.
Republicans walking a tightrope
Vásquez defeated first-term Republican Rep. Yvette Herrell by just 1,350 votes in 2022 after Democrats rezoned the congressional district, splitting the conservative oil-producing region into three districts.
Herrell, who is seeking his fourth consecutive congressional seat, described “total chaos” at the border and, along with Republican congressional colleagues, claimed Democrats had ruined the US election. Opposed to citizenship proof requirements For new voters.
“It’s one or the other,” Herrell said at a rally in Las Cruces with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. “It’s about our sovereign right to an open border.”
Foreign nationals are already barred from voting in federal elections, with penalties including prison time and deportation, and Vasquez said the new requirement would make it even harder for legitimate voters to cast ballots, including Native Americans, who were not allowed to vote in New Mexico until 1948. According to state data: Foreigners are voting —However, there aren’t many of them.
Herrell’s comments about immigration were aimed at voters in a district that Trump lost by about 6 percentage points in 2020.
“She has to walk a tightrope to garner any enthusiasm from Trump supporters,” said Gabriel Sanchez, director of the Center for Social Policy at the University of New Mexico.
The district’s voting-age population is 56% Hispanic, with centuries of ties to Mexican and Spanish settlement, and a smaller percentage of foreign-born residents than the national average.
“Republicans are increasingly looking to the Hispanic vote because they feel like they can make some headway with that,” said Brian Sanderoff, an Albuquerque-based pollster. “The Hispanic vote in southeastern New Mexico is actually split. If you’re Hispanic in Lee County right now, you’re about as likely to vote Republican as you are to vote Democrat.”
Cesar Ramos, a recently retired Border Patrol agent in Alamogordo, said he feels pressured by restrictions on prosecuting illegal immigrants, who he says contribute to higher prices for housing and basic goods. He praised Herrell for his tough rhetoric.
“The people here in Alamogordo are 110 percent supportive of legal immigration, but we hate that there is smuggling and criminal activity coming into the United States without legal papers,” said Ramos, a Republican of Puerto Rican descent.
Democratic orthodoxy is also being tested in Sunland Park, a working-class community nestled between the border and a quarter-horse racing track.
Luis Soto, of Sunland Park, said immigration across the border is affecting his efforts to open a marijuana dispensary in a former post office.
“We’re waiting for the fire chief to inspect us, but he’s been busy rescuing people in the desert, rescuing bodies from the river, rescuing people trapped in trailers,” said Soto, 43, the son of Mexican immigrants and from a lifelong Democratic family. “We come from immigrant backgrounds, and I think if this system could be improved, it would be better for them and it would be better for us.”
He is a fan of Herrell and associates Trump with better times.
“There was more money. There was more money lying around,” Soto said. “Now we have money, but it’s money to pay bills.”
Incumbents try to find common ground
Reps. Vásquez of New Mexico and Ciscomani of Arizona, young by congressional standards at 40 and 42, and nearly polar opposites ideologically, have co-sponsored at least three bills to modernize temporary visas for farm workers, boost local manufacturing and combat opioid trafficking. While those bills have yet to reach a floor vote, the Republican-led House did approve a Ciscomani proposal to stop police from conducting deadly highway chases against migrant smugglers.
“Juan and I played basketball together and he became a good friend,” Vasquez said. “There are some solutions we can implement at the border today that may not look like comprehensive immigration reform, but we’re working on them piece by piece.”
Ciscomani said he wants to help in any way he can. His Democratic opponent in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, Kirsten Engel, dismissed the idea, saying Ciscomani had openly opposed a major bipartisan border bill in February, days after President Trump directed Republican lawmakers to abandon the agreement.
$20 billion bill It would require a complete overhaul of the refugee system. It also gives the president new powers to expel immigrants if there is a large number of asylum applications.
“This is actually a fairly conservative bill that Siscomani vetoed immediately at Trump’s behest,” said Engel, a former state legislator and law professor. “This is the kind of solution that a lot of constituents here really supported.”
Engel lost the 2022 election by about 5,000 votes. She hopes to win this time by campaigning against unfair price fixing for consumers and for abortion rights. A constitutional amendment to guarantee abortion rights on a statewide ballot could help boost Democratic turnout.
Engel supports the abortion amendment and opposes a ballot proposition that would allow local police to make arrests at the border, which he calls an unfunded mandate. Siscomani declined to say how she would vote on the proposition but said she opposes a nationwide abortion ban.
In Sunland Park, off-road Border Patrol vehicles kick up dust into the morning air as unmarked buses carrying detained migrants arrive. Aldovino looks out at Cristo Rey mountain from his deck and wonders aloud what it will take to make this work for those coming in search of a better life, and for those already here.
“Unfortunately, the whole desert is teeming with life,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed to this report.
