News

Shocking video report shows cartel smugglers ravaging NM’s southern border

37 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

A new video report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has revealed shocking images from the United States border with Mexico in the El Paso sector, encompassing New Mexico.

On New Mexico’s border with Mexico, the report by the group’s senior national security fellow Todd Bensman shows images of square holes cut out of the mesh border barrier constructed under President George W. Bush, which the cartel is utilizing to smuggle illegal immigrants into the country.

Just in a one-mile stretch examined by CIS, it found at least seven holes still gaping open and utilized by the cartel. It also caught on video armed cartel members smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States. 

Other scenes from the report show Bensman joining Hidalgo County Sherriff’s deputies to catch criminal aliens with laser night vision technology. 

“In New Mexico, the Democratic governor (Michelle Lujan Grisham) won’t allow State Police to join the dwindling ranks of Border Patrol agents in opposing this runner traffick, quite unlike neighboring Republican Governor Greg Abbott with his multi-billion-dollar ‘Operation Lone Star.’ That leaves some willing sheriffs’ offices to protect their own communities. One of them is Hidalgo County Sherriff William Chadborn of Lordscburg in Southwest New Mexico,” Bensman explains.  

“It’s pretty much a constant flow. There’s always something coming through… Hidalgo County,” the Sheriff said. 

Watch the full report from CIS: 

The dire scenes from the border are only expected to worsen, as Biden’s ineffective border policies and the lapse of Title 42 are creating a perfect storm for an even worse crisis.

Lujan Grisham kicks can down the road on border crisis

55 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

On Thursday, ahead of Title 42’s expiration, which helped quell the border catastrophe, Democrat New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is kicking the can down the road to Congress instead of helping in New Mexico to alleviate the crisis, as Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) is doing. Abbott declared a state of emergency and deployed the Tactical Border Force to help with the crisis.

Instead of helping alleviate the human suffering from the border crisis, Lujan Grisham wrote on Twitter, “I want New Mexicans, especially those on our southern border, to know we are in close communication with cities and counties to make sure they are supported as Title 42 ends tonight.”

She continued, “I’ve emphasized to the federal government the importance of coordinating a comprehensive humanitarian response, and I urge Congress to embrace a longer-term solution by passing immigration reform legislation immediately.”

A plan the U.S. House voted on Thursday evening to fix the humanitarian border catastrophe received no Democrat support at all, including from any of New Mexico’s three Democrat Reps. Gabe Vasquez (who represents the state’s border district), Teresa Leger Fernandez, or Melanie Stansbury. 

State Rep. John Block (R-Alamogordo) urged Lujan Grisham to deploy the state’s National Guard to the border after she yanked them from the post shortly following her installment as governor in 2019. 

“Send the National Guard to the Southern Border to help stop the catastrophe, as you should have years ago. That is precisely how you can help alleviate the horror the Biden regime has inflicted upon our country by neglecting the border and creating a humanitarian crisis,” he wrote. 

New Mexico has over 53 miles of border that are unsecured by barriers or any kind of security apparatus, making the state extremely vulnerable to an invasion pushed by Joe Biden’s policies that have resulted in a massive surge in illegal immigration.

Scathing ABQ Journal editorial NUKES Dems’ sniveling over Holtec’s green light

9 Comments / New Mexico, News, Opinion, Politics / By

A recent editorial from the Albuquerque Journal’s editorial board ripped opponents of Holtec International’s safe temporary spent fuel storage facility a new one. 

This week, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) granted a license to Holtec International for the multi-billion-dollar interim storage facility in Eddy and Lea Counties.

Democrat politicians whined and bellyached about the move, erroneously claiming the safe fuel storage facility would make New Mexico a “dumping ground” of spent “nuclear waste,” among other melodramatic rhetoric. 

The Democrats in New Mexico’s congressional delegation and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Attorney General Raúl Torrez complained about it.

The board wrote that these whining Democrats didn’t “offer any alternatives for the storage of spent commercial nuclear fuel.” 

It wrote that despite Democrats referencing S.B. 53 passed during the 2023 Legislative Session despite bipartisan opposition, Holtec will challenge the law trying to stymie the company’s operations, and it “will likely win.”

It continued, “Sen. Martin Heinrich said in a separate statement Tuesday no regulatory commission “should be using interim standards to approve indefinite storage” until there is a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel. Fair point. But Heinrich, the rest of the state’s delegation, the governor and the AG conveniently do not mention the U.S. lacks a permanent storage site because their fellow Democrat, the late Sen. Harry Reid, blocked the truly permanent storage site in Yucca Mountain after Congress quite literally sank $15 billion of taxpayer money into what is now the most expensive, empty parking garage in America. So there is nowhere to transfer more than 70,000 metric tons of used reactor fuel from commercial power plants at 73 sites across 39 states — even though U.S. law requires one. How about enforcing that law?” 

The board concluded with the following: 

Heinrich ended his statement: “New Mexicans didn’t sign up for this.”

Except many have. Give Carlsbad Mayor Dale Janway or Hobbs Mayor Sam Cobb a call. They’ll fill you in on the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance that southeastern New Mexico leaders formed in 2006 and the thousand acres of remote cattle grazing land ELEA bought expressly for Holtec between Carlsbad and Hobbs. And then there are the nuclear experts who work in our three national labs and at WIPP and Urenco.

It’s time for state leaders to put their politics aside, recognize the science and the scary fact we have spent nuclear waste sitting on water tables across the country, and support the bridge carbon-neutral nuclear power offers. And it’s time for our delegation in D.C. to move beyond cheap partisan sound bites and actually do something about safely storing nuclear waste.

Now that the Holtec International project is a go, there is nothing the seething Democrats can do about the facility that will provide safe interim storage while bringing billions of dollars in investment to New Mexico. 

Vasquez refuses to vote for immigration fix, lobs strange accusations at GOP

19 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

On Thursday, far-left U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico’s Second Congressional District said he would vote against a commonsense bill to help alleviate Joe Biden’s border catastrophe by extending Title 42’s sunset date and implement other measures to stem the flow of illegal immigration into the United States. 

In a video message, Vasquez said, “Republicans are trying to further break a system that’s already broken,” referencing the immigration bill proposed by the GOP to cure the crisis.

“That’s why I’m voting against H.R. 2, an extreme anti-immigrant bill that falls woefully short of who we are as Americans and what we are capable of,” he continued. 

He also charged Republicans with “extinguishing the flame of the Statute of Liberty,” whatever that means, and said the bill “further sows the seeds of division.” 

The National Republican Congressional Committee’s Delanie Bomar wrote on Twitter following Vasquez’s announcement that he will not help stave off the crisis of illegal immigration, “The crisis at the border is unfolding in Vasquez’s own backyard. El Paso is 40 miles from his district. New Mexicans deserve better than this.” 

U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said during his remarks on the House floor regarding H.R. 2, “And what does this bill [do]? It secures America’s border again and ends catch-and-release. It says, ‘Let’s get back to rule of law.’ We are actually a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. We can do both, but this President has abandoned the rule of law to the point where more than five million people have come across illegally.”

“And what has it also done? It’s brought drugs into our country. The cartels are running our southern border. Today, we’re going to lose 300 young people to fentanyl deaths because [Joe] Biden opened our southern border. Yesterday, 300 young people died. Tomorrow, another 300 young people in America will die because the President opened the southern border, and he doesn’t care about it. He issued a veto threat on the bill that will fix it.” 

Left-wing NM paper says Biden ‘frittered away’ chance to fix border crisis

6 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

The Santa Fe New Mexican’s editorial board hit Biden on his failure to secure the southern border and work to fix the immigration issue causing millions of illegal immigrants to flood the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

Title 42 expires at Midnight Thursday, leaving the country without an effective way to quickly and efficiently expel criminal aliens from the country. Biden promised to veto a GOP plan being passed Thursday by the U.S. House that would extend Title 42. Now, as the crisis ramps up, even his far-left supporters are offering criticisms of his border actions. 

The board, while promoting asylum, bemoaned, “Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says after Thursday, people who attempt to cross into the country between points of entry likely will be unable to claim asylum.”

They wrote, “While the pandemic and foreign unrest rightly claimed much of the president’s attention during his first term, the leader of the world’s foremost democracy has to walk, chew gum and otherwise function on many fronts.”

“It’s a mess,” the editorial board wrote. “The situation at the border is long overdue for attention. Neglect gives Biden’s opponents a club with which to attack — a political weapon they employed often and effectively over the past 10 years (Remember Trump?). Biden frittered away a chance to handle immigration effectively; he now faces the unhappy prospect of a new immigration problem that may last weeks, months, years.”

“Until reform passes, the president — this one or any other — will be left to apply Band-Aids on bleeding wounds that require stitching. Biden is supposed to be the adult president, governing from a place of experience and knowledge. He’ll need all of that to defuse the coming crisis,” they wrote.

Under President Trump, over 450 miles of border wall were constructed, while his strong policies to sure up security made illegal immigration dip significantly. However, under the Biden regime, around six million illegals have flooded into the country, with over 11,000 ravaging the border daily.

To counter this, instead of making meaningful reforms, Biden is now authorizing a policy to let criminal aliens flood into the United States without proper vetting or a way to track them.

MLG appears in cringe-inducing Biden social media ad, claiming he ‘delivers’

5 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

In a new social media ad from Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, far-left New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham joined other lawmakers to prop up the 80-year-old Democrat politician.

The governor claimed “Biden delivers” in the video. 

Others featured include Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL), Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC), Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH), Gov. Ned Lamont (D-CT), Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), Mayor Kate Gallego (D-Phoenix, AZ), Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY), Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX), Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA), Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), Mayor Mike Duggan (D-Detroit, MI), Mayor Andre Dickens (D-Atlanta, GA), Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway (D-Madison, WI), Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA), and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-PA).

Biden was hailed in the video by the Democrat politicians as “driven,” “transformational,” “a steady hand,” and someone who “rocks.” 

The cringe-inducing social media ad is the latest attempt by the Biden campaign to promote its agenda after a lackluster — some might describe it as horrible — term in office, with sky-high inflation, a wide-open border, the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan, ant-gun laws rammed through Congress, among other disasters that have amounted to weakening of the Oval Office.

Lujan Grisham was considered for Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020 but lost that opportunity to far-left Democrat California Sen. Kamala Harris. She was also offered the post of Interior secretary but turned it down, instead aiming for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services chief, which was denied her in favor of California’s then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra, another far-left Democrat.

Biden visited New Mexico in 2022 to promote the governor’s reelection campaign and later appointed her to the Council of Governors. It is unclear if she is vying once again for a cabinet post if Biden wins in 2024, but there have been rumblings that the governor may have her eye on Sen. Martin Heinrich’s U.S. Senate seat if he decides to run for the governorship in 2026. 

Biden with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham during 2022 campaign stop in Albuquerque.
In a crippling blow to MLG, Biden picks Hispanic California AG for HHS post in fictitious cabinet

Biden’s Horn of Africa diplomat visiting New Mexico next week

Leave a Comment / New Mexico, News / By

Next week, Joe Biden’s Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa (SEHOA) Ambassador Mike Hammer, is traveling to Santa Fe to speak at Global Santa Fe and the Santa Fe World Affairs Forum (SFWAF).

The forum is set for May 18th and will be held at the Santa Fe Community College Board Room.

Hammer was named the United States Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa on June 1, 2022. His most recent assignment abroad was as the U.S. ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from 2018 to 2022.

“Ambassador Hammer is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service class of Minister-Counselor.  His over three decades of service include serving as Acting Senior Vice President of the National Defense University (NDU) and Deputy Commandant of NDU’s Eisenhower School. He [was] U.S. ambassador to Chile from 2014-2016. Prior to his appointment in Chile, Ambassador Hammer served as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs from March 2012 to August 2013,” wrote SFWAF. 

This is the latest visit from a Biden administration official to the state after U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visited New Mexico in April.

Interestingly, Hammer has been appointed by both Republican and Democrat presidents to various roles, beginning in the Obama administration. President Donald Trump appointed him to be the DRC ambassador in 2018, a role he served in until 2022.

More information about the event can be found here.

Biden releases illegal immigrants into U.S. without tracking as Title 42 expires

6 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

In the latest concerning development in the U.S. southern border crisis, the Joe Biden regime is now planning to release apprehended illegal immigrants into the country “without court dates or the ability to track them,” as NBC News reports.

“The Biden administration began releasing migrants without court dates to alleviate overcrowding in March 2021, but had previously enrolled those migrants in a program known as Alternatives to Detention, which required them to check in on a mobile app until they were eventually given a court date. The new policy would release them on ‘parole’ with a notice to report to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office but without enrolling them in the program.” 

The move comes after 11,000 illegal immigrants were caught crossing the southern border on Tuesday — a record that surpasses expectations of 10,000 per day previously predicted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“We’re already breaking and we haven’t hit the starting line,” one DHS official anonymously told NBC News. 

The increase in illegal immigrant crossings is already ravaging ports of entry in New Mexico, California, Arizona, and Texas, as well as gaping holes left in the border barrier left unfinished by the Biden administration.

Title 42, a pandemic-era program that allowed the swift deportation of illegal immigrants, is set to end on Thursday, leaving the country in a crisis as limp Biden regime immigration policies have resulted in historic illegal immigrant crossings and a humanitarian crisis exploding on the border. 

Congress is set to vote on Thursday to extend Title 42, but it is unclear at the moment if the proposal will make it across the finish line to Biden’s desk by the 11:59 p.m. deadline when the program is set to expire.

NRC’s approval of Holtec project leaves Gov. Lujan Grisham, AG Torrez fuming

16 Comments / New Mexico, News, Politics / By

Democrat New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez issued a joint statement angered over the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) decision to grant a license to Holtec International for an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel located on land in Eddy and Lea Counties in New Mexico’s extreme southeastern corner. 

“This decision by the NRC – which has been made despite the grave concerns of the state and the legislature over the project’s potential impacts to health, safety and the economy – is incredibly disappointing,” the two Democrats said.

“It also undermines the NRC’s alleged commitment to meaningful engagement with stakeholders, as it appears our concerns were wholly ignored and went unaddressed by Holtec and the NRC,” they wrote, despite the lengthy process Holtec took to receive approvals and work with state and local stakeholders.

The two politicians claimed they “will not stop our fight,” claiming the new interim facility would turn the state into a “nuclear dumping ground.” The project previously got a positive environmental impact statement from the NRC.

These safe fuel rods, housed in secure casks, would be transported by rail to the facility on train shipments specifically for storage. The project would account for over 350 new jobs. 

The casks are immune to hurricanes, floods, tornados, earthquakes, and even the impact of a plane crash. There would be no adverse effect on wildlife nor on groundwater, no radiological consequences in the event of a fire, and an inconspicuous design.

“Earlier this year, the state Legislature passed and the governor signed Senate Bill 53, which will impose new, more robust state licensing requirements for this project before any construction may begin. In the meantime, we are evaluating available legal recourse and will take any action necessary to make sure that ground is never broken on this ‘interim’ facility in New Mexico,” the two Democrats’ offices wrote in the joint statement.

It is immediately unclear what “actions” the politicians seek to take, which would be bucking federal regulatory agencies — something they do not have the power to regulate. 

El Pollo Loco expanding to New Mexico with nine new locations

21 Comments / New Mexico, News / By

The popular fast-food chicken restaurant ​​El Pollo Loco, specializing in Los Angeles-style fire-grilled Mexican chicken, is opening new locations in New Mexico with the signing of new development agreements. 

“A deal with Mass Equities EPL LLC will result in 10 units over eight years with the first restaurants due by December 2024 for Larimer County and portions of Boulder, Broomfield and Weld Counties in northern Colorado. The second and third deals, signed by CB Pollo NM 1 and CB Pollo Tx 1, respectfully, includes nine units for New Mexico and seven in El Paso,” wrote FastCasual.com.

“El Pollo Loco’s corporate team has made it an easy decision to grow our franchise operations with them,” Mass Equities Founder and CEO Drew Sobel said in a company press release. “The brand’s growth over the past few years is evident and its unique offering supported by excellence in operations is a strategic fit for our portfolio of businesses. Fueled by the brand’s initial success in the Colorado market, we look forward to bringing the El Pollo Loco experience to northern parts of the state.”

El Pollo Loco (“The Crazy Chicken”), Houston via Wikimedia Commons.

The chain is looking to increase its national footprint by featuring its latest dining room design options, an enhanced digitized experience with self-ordering kiosks, mobile to-go and delivery pick-up areas, and digital menu boards.

Since 1980, the restaurant has operated 490 company-owned and franchised locations across the United States. 

El Pollo Loco describes its food as the “SoCal lifestyle meets Mexican heritage. It’s better-for-you choices like fire-grilled chicken and tradition-inspired temptations like Overstuffed Quesadillas. It’s burritos, taquitos and tacos with a fresh California Twist. It’s a menu that can meet any dietary need from paleo to vegetarian to straight out craving. Simply said, it’s L.A. active, it’s Mexican proud and it’s exactly what you’ll find at El Pollo Loco.” 

1 … 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 … 195

Stay Updated

Scroll to Top