Keller signs order to protect immigrants, draws criticism

Mayor Tim Keller signed an executive order Monday that aims to protect immigrant rights amid reports of increased U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Albuquerque and across the country. The order, however, is a mixed bag of new and preexisting directives, some of which have been criticized for being unenforceable.

Most of the policies are in line with a 2018 City Council resolution that declared Albuquerque an “immigrant friendly city” and forbade city personnel from working with ICE, save for when required by a court order. Other directives expand on the resolution.

For example, the order requires the city attorney to routinely file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests about ICE activities within the city. It also mandates that Katarina Sandoval, the city’s child wellbeing officer, and the Office of Equity and Inclusion develop “trauma-informed” training for all city departments that work with children impacted by immigration enforcement, including those who have been separated from their parents. The order additionally warns that anyone caught impersonating an ICE agent will be prosecuted “to the highest degree allowable.”

The move comes a week after video of an ICE arrest at a West Side Walmart went viral, leading to a Sunday protest outside the grocery store that drew immigrant advocates and Keller’s political opponent, mayoral hopeful and former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico Alex Uballez, who has called on the city to do more to protect immigrants. There has been an increase of arrests by ICE under President Donald Trump, who frequently speaks during public appearances about his efforts to deport “the worst of the worst.”

Some items in Keller’s executive order appear to conflict with one another, especially where ICE and the Albuquerque Police Department overlap.

While the executive order states that ICE agents “must not disrupt the wellbeing of City public spaces through violent or harmful detainment actions,” it also states that “the Albuquerque Police Department cannot legally interfere with ICE activity.”

However, the order does instruct APD to verify the identity of suspected ICE agents if asked to by a member of the public. The public can report suspected ICE raids to APD’s non-emergency line, (505) 242-2677, for verification.

Neither ICE nor the U.S. Department of Homeland Security could be immediately reached for comment on the executive order.

Members of local immigrant advocacy groups crowded in the mayor’s conference room Monday to watch as Keller signed the order, using a different pen to write each letter and then passing them backward. He did so, he said, to honor the tradition of giving a keepsake to those who helped a piece of policy reach the finish line.

Fabiola Landeros, a community organizer with El Centro de Igualdad y Derechos, lauded the mayor for taking action and spoke of the fear running through the immigrant community, whom she lovingly called “mi gente” or my people.

“Imagine feeling afraid every time you left your home that you will be disappeared, separated from your children, that nobody will know where you are, or that you could be held in a detention center in a country you’re not from,” Landeros said.

Members of the Roundhouse also came to show their support. State Sen. Cindy Nava, D-Bernalillo, and House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, reflected on the struggles their families endured as immigrants. Nava is an immigrant herself, specifically a “Dreamer,” the colloquial term for a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

“Thank you to everyone here for your continued fight, your work, and your strength in being here, because I know the fear that lives inside us,” Nava said in Spanish.

Not everyone saw the executive order as a step in the right direction, or a step forward at all.

“It means nothing, it says nothing, it’s political theater,” City Councilor Dan Lewis said about the mayor’s executive order.

Lewis said that he, alongside city councilors Renee Grout and Dan Champine, will propose an amendment to any resolution that seeks to codify or expand upon the executive order. Lewis hopes to reestablish cooperation between the federal government and the city through granting them access to data in the Prisoner Transport Center.

Other critics included Uballez.

“Today’s reaffirmation fell far short of the solutions our community deserves, prioritizing the optics of safety instead of actually operationalizing it,” Uballez said in a statement.

Several of the directives from the executive order appeared a week earlier in a letter of recommendations for immigration reform sent to the city by Uballez. When asked if the timing of the executive order stemmed from his challenger’s letter, Keller said that the two were unrelated and that the city began drafting the order in June.

“I’m not familiar with the specifics (of the letter), but as I understand it, we were already doing most of those things,” Keller said after the news conference.

Uballez’s letter included 11 recommendations, which included restricting data sharing with the federal government, paying the legal fees of those facing deportation with public funds, and passing an Immigrant Civil Rights Act.

City personnel have been forbidden to share information about immigration status, except when presented with a court order, since the 2018 resolution.

“While Alex’s newfound interest in immigrant rights is refreshing, where were these suggestions while he was working for Donald Trump?” said city spokesperson in a later statement.

Uballez, and more than 20 other U.S. attorneys, were fired in the first month of Trump’s second term as part of a purge of political appointees in the Justice Department. He was appointed in 2022 by former President Joe Biden. Uballez announced his bid for the mayor’s office in April.

“Our immigrant communities and their advocates are working so hard in this moment, they deserve a mayor who will match their energy with the power at his disposal,” Uballez said.